Episode 64: "I gave birth to a kindergarten" for the southernmost Chabad House in the world | With Freidy Klein, mother of quadruplets and Chabad shlucha in Bariloche

00:00 Speaker 1 Frady is a serial record-breaker. She got married at nineteen, and three months later she and her husband set out on shlichus that was supposed to be temporary. Sixteen years later, they’re still there. Frady and her husband are a warm Jewish presence in chilly Bariloche, home to the southernmost Chabad House in the world. While juggling countless roles, Frady and her husband discover that she’s pregnant with quadruplets. How do you react to news like that? What do you do when every doctor repeats the darkest predictions? And how do you physically return to your shlichus in Bariloche with four newborns? What happens at a Chabad House at the end of the world, a place reached only by people willing to spend endless hours on the road? How do you serve a Shabbos meal to hundreds of people without help? We have answers to all these questions. Come draw inspiration and strength from Bariloche’s incredible shlucha, Frady Klein. A reminder: if you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it to yourself. Pass it on to your sister, your mother, a neighbor or a friend—anyone who matters to you. To book workshops and talks on life-changing tools from Chassidus and on living Chassidus in the digital world, call 050-850-5770. To follow my status updates, message me at the same number. The 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 sense of shlichus to a range of fields. Through them, each of us can find and refine her own shlichus in the world. Because living the lives we were created to live is as good as it gets. Shlichus as a way of life. We’re starting right now. Welcome to another episode of Shlichus as a Way of Life. Today we’re flying to Argentina. How are you?

01:57 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem.

01:58 Speaker 1 Welcome, Frady.

01:59 Speaker 2 Gracias.

02:01 Speaker 1 You know how everyone is convinced they do the best accent, and then they hear themselves and it’s like, “Okay, forget it, go back to your own accent.”

02:06 Speaker 2 Exactly.

02:07 Speaker 1 But I did pick a nice language, didn’t I? Spanish.

02:11 Speaker 2 I guess. I don’t know. Everyone tells me that, and then—

02:13 Speaker 1 Compared to...?

02:15 Speaker 2 I’ll tell you. Most of our work is with Israelis. There isn’t a community, so most of the people we meet are Israeli, and my Hebrew keeps getting better.

02:25 Speaker 1 Right, as opposed to your Spanish.

02:27 Speaker 2 Exactly. Over time, we’ve found a few local Jews, and there are tourists who speak Spanish too. We do speak Spanish, but the children are better at it than we are.

02:36 Speaker 1 Yes, that’s always how it is.

02:37 Speaker 2 What took us—

02:37 Speaker 1 They correct us.

02:38 Speaker 2 Many years, yes.

02:39 Speaker 1 Nice. So, Frady, introduce yourself to us—and to me, too. I came in with relatively little information, and I’m curious to hear.

02:47 Speaker 2 Gladly. I’m Frady, and, boruch Hashem, I’m married to my dear husband, Boaz. We’ve been on shlichus in Bariloche for sixteen years now. It’s the southernmost Chabad House in the world, the most remote.

02:58 Speaker 1 You couldn’t find anywhere farther away?

02:59 Speaker 2 Oh, that reminds me of a joke I always tell. I grew up on shlichus in the Jezreel Valley. All in all, I really had a good upbringing, in a beautiful little village.

03:14 Speaker 1 We were doing all right.

03:15 Speaker 2 Yes, absolutely. But it was the Rebbe’s blessing, you know. Still, I remember saying to my parents at one point, “Why did the Rebbe put us in such a hole?” We traveled an hour each way to school, and all my friends—at that age when you need friends—were busy with things that weren’t really right for me. I didn’t even have one traditional friend in the village. My mother would always tell me, “Be careful how you talk about the Rebbe. Don’t speak that way about the Rebbe.” And at the end of the day, Kfar Baruch is the center of the world.

03:44 Speaker 1 It really is.

03:44 Speaker 2 And I called a place the Rebbe sent us a hole? Okay.

03:47 Speaker 1 Wow. So how did you actually end up there?

03:49 Speaker 2 We’d been married barely three months. We were nineteen and twenty-one.

03:57 Speaker 1 Wow.

03:57 Speaker 2 Yes.

03:58 Speaker 1 That’s an episode in itself.

03:59 Speaker 2 It really is. No, we’re record-breakers. Then we saw a notice on some Chabad website or something, saying they were looking for shluchim for a short stint at the Chabad House in Bariloche. We didn’t know what Argentina was. I’d never even heard of the country before. Anyway, it said to get in touch if anyone was interested. So my husband said, “What do you think? Maybe we’ll go, volunteer, and do a short shlichus.” I said, “You know what? Let’s go.” I had no idea what it involved. Nothing. We didn’t get any guidance, either. You know, whenever people meet me, they ask, “Who guides the shluchim? Who teaches them? Who’s there to look after them?” They don’t realize that, of course, there’s a framework, but we arrive and simply learn—

04:47 Speaker 3 You jump in at the deep end.

04:47 Speaker 2 Exactly. There’s no preparation for it. So that was it: we decided to go. We really didn’t look into it much. It was a more innocent time, you know, simpler. We didn’t have what we have today. There weren’t iPhones back then. By the way, where we live in Argentina—if you put Bariloche sixteen years ago on a timeline between today and Avraham Avinu, it was closer to Avraham Avinu. It was so remote and had so little. I really felt as though I was arriving in a desert. A frozen desert. It’s terribly cold there, close to Antarctica.

05:23 Speaker 3 A cold place?

05:23 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s close to Antarctica.

05:26 Speaker 3 Wow.

05:26 Speaker 2 So we decided to fly. We took the little money we had and bought tickets. Getting to Argentina involved a crazy series of flights. For example, when we came back this time, the very shortest route we could manage was a first flight of two and a half hours, a transfer to another airport, and a second flight of nearly twenty hours.

05:47 Speaker 3 Wow.

05:47 Speaker 2 Then another flight—first a wait at the airport, then another four- or five-hour flight. Back then, we looked for a cheaper ticket because flights were terribly, terribly expensive. We took a route via the Rebbe. How could we go on shlichus, even the shortest shlichus, without going to the Rebbe first—

06:03 Speaker 3 Could you just raise your hand a little toward your [unclear]?

06:04 Speaker 2 One second. Great.

06:05 Speaker 3 Yes.

06:07 Speaker 2 So we said we’d take a longer route, one that would also take us via the Rebbe, so we could receive the Rebbe’s blessing and everything. There’s a story about that which I haven’t told in a long time. On our very first flight, imagine: a young couple, married for three months. And it’s not as if we’d known each other for long beforehand, either, right?

06:25 Speaker 3 Right. Not at all.

06:26 Speaker 2 Exactly. What’s five meetings? It’s like...

06:29 Speaker 3 Wow.

06:31 Speaker 2 So we took the classic El Al flight, going first to the Rebbe and planning to continue from there to Argentina. Even from there, by the way, Argentina is another flight of about twelve hours, then a transfer to another airport, then another flight. Everything is so far away; nothing is close. And on the way there, on my first flight with my husband, we were flying to the Rebbe, and we had to make an emergency landing in Iceland.

06:57 Speaker 3 Wow.

06:58 Speaker 2 The stories! Listen, I have to tell you something about this. When we left, it was summer here, and everyone at the airport was dressed for warm weather. But we were flying into winter. The seasons in Argentina are reversed: when it’s summer here, it’s winter there. Right now, for instance, it’s deep winter there—ski season. So we’d packed warm clothes, boots, a coat, everything. We arrived at the airport with our suitcase, and the check-in agent said, “Your suitcase is too heavy. You’ll have to take some things out.” What could we take out? We didn’t know. What was heavy? I had a very heavy coat and a pair of heavy boots. What else could we take out? And how were we going to carry them around in that heat? You know, it was hot in the United States then, too. Anyway, I boarded the plane wearing long boots and a coat, all meant for Bariloche, and suddenly we had an emergency landing in Iceland.

07:53 Speaker 3 Wow.

07:54 Speaker 2 And I got out in Iceland with my boo—and Iceland was freezing.

07:57 Speaker 3 Everyone was freezing.

07:58 Speaker 2 Everyone was dressed for summer, and there I was in long boots and a long coat. They were looking at me like, “These religious people—what did they know?” What did she know? But I really felt as if the Rebbe was taking care of me, saying, “I’m with you.”

08:11 Speaker 3 Someone was looking out for you.

08:12 Speaker 2 Yes. That’s it. And we really did fly to the Rebbe, and afterward we continued on to Bariloche. Let me remind you again: we were nineteen and twenty-one when we landed. I remember the shock. We knew absolutely nothing, and we didn’t really have anyone to consult. Listen, it’s a very, very, very tough place, at least at first. Things have improved since then, but for us as a young couple it was so, so hard, so remote, and everything. Argentina itself makes things difficult, too. You know, there are countries where you pay a little, make a few arrangements, and what you need is nearby. Not for us. We’re a twenty-four-hour drive from the capital.

08:51 Speaker 3 Oh my goodness.

08:52 Speaker 2 In the south, the cold south, and it’s also a nature reserve.

08:55 Speaker 3 Yes, you have to be a little crazy to go there.

08:57 Speaker 2 You do, yes. You have to be completely devoted to the shlichus, and...

09:01 Speaker 3 Why do people go there? I mean, you arrive there. Is there a Jewish community?

09:05 Speaker 2 No, there isn’t a Jewish community. There are a very few individual Jews whom we tracked down one by one.

09:10 Speaker 3 Who survived the cold.

09:12 Speaker 2 Exactly. A lot of them are Jews who have, in a way, chosen exile for themselves. Jews who aren’t really looking for company—people who are looking more for solitude. People looking for a social life and other people, you know, for a lively place...

09:27 Speaker 3 Yes.

09:28 Speaker 2 They don’t find that there. There are all kinds of Jews there. Some even came from very observant families and shed everything. They simply ran away, as if to disconnect from Judaism. And... in the end...

09:42 Speaker 3 Wow.

09:42 Speaker 2 Yes, in the end, boruch Hashem, they got to know us. But these really were Jews who had chosen this kind of Jewish exile. And slowly, slowly, as we found them—it’s a town spread over a very, very large area. There aren’t many people, but the area is large, and finding each person is terribly difficult. You don’t have information, either, or anyone to help you find the Jews. Boruch Hashem, we have so many stories involving the few local Jews there, but it isn’t something you can build on. There are no children for our children to grow up with, for example, no schools, and there won’t be. There’s no local Jewish future there. But there are twenty-five to thirty thousand travelers a year.

10:22 Speaker 3 Wow.

10:22 Speaker 2 Israelis.

10:23 Speaker 3 That’s wild. Wow. Why do they go there?

10:26 Speaker 2 Well, the young people who come—and they’re ninety percent of the travelers—say, “It’s as far from our parents as you can get,” right?

10:33 Speaker 3 Like people who want to run away to the ends of the earth.

10:35 Speaker 2 Yes. They come after the army to unwind and... clear their heads, cleanse their souls. The scenery is incredible. It’s very, very beautiful, but when you get there... what makes it different is that everything really is so big and so far away. To get from one place to another, sometimes you drive for thirty hours. There are natural wonders there, too: a calving glacier, Antarctica, the area near Chile, trips to Antarctica, very beautiful waterfalls.

11:02 Speaker 3 Wait, wait, wait, I didn’t understand. How did Antarctica come into this?

11:04 Speaker 2 Well, the departure point for Antarctica is in southern Argentina, about a four-hour flight from us. You get to the port, the place where you can set sail for Antarctica. They do...

11:15 Speaker 3 Because I only know about it from a research project I did in sixth grade on the...

11:18 Speaker 2 Right, me too. Me too, really. I’d always see it on a globe, you know? But ours is actually the Chabad House closest to Antarctica.

11:26 Speaker 3 Wow.

11:26 Speaker 2 And people traveling there pass through our place. During the holidays and at other times, if someone happens to be sailing to Antarctica, we’ll often send things along with them. Then they send us a picture—with a Chanukah menorah, you know, or matzos, or the Four Species that we sent with the travelers. We’re the southernmost Chabad House in the world, but below us there’s a vast region full of tourists where no one has yet chosen to open another Chabad House.

11:52 Speaker 3 Listen, anyone hearing this who’s having that thought...

11:55 Speaker 2 Yes, then I wish her luck. Enjoy.

11:59 Speaker 3 Wow.

11:59 Speaker 2 But that’s why, so often, one shliach makes another. We simply place the responsibility on travelers, and it’s amazing, by the way. It’s one of the most amazing things. For example, when I give someone Shabbos candle kits to hand out, I always give her two. I say, “One kit is for you, and you’re responsible for finding another woman to light with you.” So thirty hours away from us, in El Chaltén—a small, truly remote place—a group of twelve girls met up, and each one had two kits. They didn’t really have anyone to give the extra kits to, but they did light. Boruch Hashem, they all had them; they’d all been to the Chabad House. And they sent me a picture: at the ends of the earth, somewhere even farther away, with Shabbos candles.

12:43 Speaker 4 How beautiful.

12:44 Speaker 2 Around them. Yes.

12:45 Speaker 4 Because you’re the southernmost, but you reach even farther south.

12:47 Speaker 2 Yes.

12:49 Speaker 4 Wow. Wait, so how did three months turn into sixteen years?

12:53 Speaker 2 Right. When we arrived, it really was... Well, first of all, it was very, very complicated. There was no meat, no milk, nothing. For milk, we would have needed to milk cows, and at the time we didn’t even know how or what to do. We hadn’t thought about it at all, and there was no meat. So we made everything with a few vegetables, eggs—the very, very basic things that are kosher anywhere. What’s amazing is that when we arrived, the two of us were completely stunned. We put the Chabad House address online and said, “Okay, what if someone shows up?” We didn’t understand the numbers. We didn’t understand—we really didn’t understand anything. It had been a very, very difficult trip, with very difficult flights. And by Friday, fifty travelers had already signed up to come to us for Shabbos dinner. Now, I was a seventeen-year-old girl who had barely ever made an omelet. I knew nothing. You know, it was our first year, our first months. You’re still eating at your parents’ house, at his parents’ house—your parents, his parents. So you don’t have recipes, you don’t have WhatsApp, you don’t have anything. You have to understand, it was a different time. We didn’t have a phone. And I really saw how Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us a special blessing: knowing what to make and how much to make. Everything was very basic, I have to admit.

13:59 Speaker 4 Wow.

13:59 Speaker 2 But people were very, very happy. At the end of the day, people don’t really come for the food.

14:02 Speaker 4 Did you have challah?

14:03 Speaker 2 We had challah. I actually remember that challah was the one thing we were really close to running out of.

14:08 Speaker 4 I should have mentioned a flour sifter, for example. That’s something...

14:11 Speaker 2 Yes. Because there had been a shliach there before us, some things were already there, but we brought things from Israel. Whenever we travel from Israel, we want to bring everything, because there’s nothing there, so those are the first things we think about. A sifter. Things for separating challah, tzitzis, a kippah—all the things you need, things that will help us with the shlichus, things that will make the travelers happy and draw them in. But once we began the shlichus there, saw the need, and understood that no one would come to replace us, we decided to stay. [unclear] We simply saw the blessing. You can’t remain indifferent. I think that in places where the shlichus is so tough, Hashem lets you see the miracles more tangibly. In Israel, you live your ordinary life, and you don’t pick miracles for breakfast. But where we are, you do pick miracles for breakfast. You see miracles in every aspect, and you see how meaningful this shlichus is. We couldn’t leave. We just couldn’t. We felt it would be irresponsible to leave that place, and no one else would come, either. So...

15:17 Speaker 4 It would be abandoning it, really.

15:18 Speaker 2 Exactly. I remember our first year, when we got to Pesach... First, let’s talk about the numbers—the number of travelers we have during the season. There’s a winter season and a summer season. In summer, the high season, we can have five hundred people on a Friday night.

15:35 Speaker 4 Wow.

15:35 Speaker 2 Yes. So that first year, we got to Pesach. We really survived Pesach—it was terribly, terribly, terribly hard. As Pesach approached, we started registering travelers. We registered a hundred, two hundred, four hundred, five hundred, eight hundred, a thousand, twelve hundred. I said to my husband, “Let’s run away.”

15:57 Speaker 4 Oh my goodness, how do you do that?

15:59 Speaker 2 I didn’t want to be there.

16:01 Speaker 4 Can they physically fit inside the Chabad House?

16:03 Speaker 2 No. We had to rent a sports hall. It was the only place that could hold so many people. And... I didn’t know how I was going to do it. It was so scary. And again, it’s not like you can just finish your shopping at Osher Ad. You really start everything from scratch.

16:15 Speaker 4 Everything from scratch, yes.

16:16 Speaker 2 Everything from scratch. And really, under very basic conditions. It’s not the United States. You don’t have the equipment, you don’t have—and staff, too. It’s a third-world country without the advantages of a third-world country. It’s not as if you have loads of workers running around, doing everything for you. No, we sat with travelers for forty-eight hours just peeling and scraping and checking and arranging, and...

16:38 Speaker 4 Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

16:38 Speaker 2 Yes, but in the end, you do it. You see that the Rebbe brings out the true Jewish potential inside us. Things you can’t believe you’re capable of. And you see that when you want to give, there’s a blessing; when you’re driven by your shlichus and you have a certain humility and kabbolas ol, that understanding that it isn’t me at all. I’m just the vessel.

16:57 Speaker 4 A conduit.

16:58 Speaker 2 I’m just the conduit for bringing blessing. And baruch Hashem, it really was amazing.

17:04 Speaker 4 How? How? Oh my goodness, I can’t wrap my head around it.

17:07 Speaker 2 You know, I often look back and ask myself how—even just about the past year or two. How, how, how? We had so many very complicated things going on there. We moved homes seventeen times.

17:16 Speaker 4 Whoa.

17:17 Speaker 2 I mean—

17:19 Speaker 4 That’s crazy.

17:20 Speaker 2 Without schooling for the children, for example, without schools for them. These are very, very basic things that you don’t have. It’s one more thing that makes it hard, and another thing, and another challenge. But we focus on what matters, and that’s it. And we do it all with tremendous joy, too. Because ultimately, shlichus is a choice, right? We keep choosing our shlichus.

17:43 Speaker 4 Do you feel that?

17:44 Speaker 2 Yes, one hundred percent.

17:46 Speaker 4 How often do you make that choice?

17:48 Speaker 2 Every day. Sometimes several times a day. Absolutely.

17:51 Speaker 4 You really need to, because otherwise you’d just get up and run away.

17:54 Speaker 2 Yes, I really work on that within myself. Look, there’s no psychologist there, no good friend to talk things over with, no neighbor. And sometimes my husband isn’t available either. Most of the time, if I have a free minute, he’s probably busy.

18:07 Speaker 4 Wow.

18:08 Speaker 2 It’s a conversation I build with myself. I’m constantly building it with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, too, and with the Rebbe, and strengthening myself several times a day. Absolutely. On challenging days, definitely.

18:17 Speaker 4 Do you feel that Frady the shlucha is a different person, with different strengths, from the Frady you would have been if you weren’t a shlucha?

18:24 Speaker 2 Definitely. I mean—

18:26 Speaker 4 It’s as though you have no choice. You have to discover things in yourself that probably would have stayed tucked away otherwise.

18:32 Speaker 2 Right. I really think that’s the true Jewish potential inside you. Because when you... I feel like I was given a gift.

18:38 Speaker 4 Absolutely.

18:38 Speaker 2 I think shlichus is one of the greatest gifts I’ve received. First, of course, there’s my husband and children, certainly, but...

18:44 Speaker 4 Exactly, yes.

18:45 Speaker 2 Just so no one says anything afterward, you know. And shlichus. But yes, we met such good friends there, amazing people. We’ve been privileged to do so many good things. You know, this year we had a traveler from Ashdod. I don’t know if that’s close to here; everything feels close here.

18:59 Speaker 4 Forty minutes.

19:00 Speaker 2 Forty minutes, lovely.

19:01 Speaker 4 It’s relative.

19:02 Speaker 2 Where we are, you know, we call something “close” if it’s a four-hour drive.

19:04 Speaker 4 Yes, exactly. That’s why I said it’s relative.

19:05 Speaker 2 Yes, it puts things in perspective. He’s a Border Police officer, and he lost one eye. A twenty-four-year-old, a truly lovely young man. A lot of people who’ve been injured have been coming to us since October seventh. He spent a whole day at our Chabad House. Then he said to my husband, “You know, you’ve figured it out.” My husband asked, “What do you mean?” He’s such a good young man. He said to my husband, “Look, I know a day was a good day if I did something good for someone—made someone smile, helped an elderly woman. Listen, you make two hundred people smile every day. You’ve figured it out.” And he’s right.

19:38 Speaker 4 So true.

19:39 Speaker 2 It really gave me chills. I remember it often, and it moves me every time, because I genuinely feel that we’re fortunate. What does a person want in life? What?

19:50 Speaker 4 Right. It brings out the good in you when you... Look, our default is to sink into ourselves.

19:55 Speaker 2 Yes.

19:56 Speaker 4 To sink into ourselves, to be preoccupied with ourselves and our problems and our struggles.

20:00 Speaker 2 Right.

20:00 Speaker 4 Because everyone has them. And suddenly you’re told, no, you need to step outside yourself.

20:04 Speaker 2 Right.

20:04 Speaker 4 Because you have guests, because you have this to do and that to do. So you’re the kind, pleasant, quick-moving Frady, and you spend most of your day like that.

20:11 Speaker 2 Exactly.

20:12 Speaker 4 It’s...

20:13 Speaker 2 No, we want shlichus. Ultimately, a Jew wants that. It’s like Yiddishkeit: you just need to uncover the spark. As I said, you just need a good teacher who believes in you, because you’re a capable student. You can do anything.

20:25 Speaker 4 Absolutely.

20:26 Speaker 2 And truly, thank you to the Rebbe for believing in us and giving us the opportunity to do so much more than we imagined.

20:33 Speaker 4 Absolutely.

20:34 Speaker 2 I really see it as a blessing in every part of life.

20:36 Speaker 4 Speaking of what we imagined, I absolutely have to ask you about your last delivery.

20:42 Speaker 2 Yes.

20:43 Speaker 4 Did you ever imagine that?

20:44 Speaker 2 No.

20:45 Speaker 4 Did you see it coming?

20:46 Speaker 2 Listen, no.

20:48 Speaker 4 I have to understand.

20:49 Speaker 2 Twins seemed beyond me. I used to look at mothers with twins, you know, and I...

20:54 Speaker 4 Me too.

20:55 Speaker 2 Listen, I look at—

20:56 Speaker 4 We can relate to each other, huh?

20:57 Speaker 2 No, it wasn’t... The thing is, even now, baruch Hashem, I’m well along in a pregnancy, and people see me pregnant, with four little ones and two older children as well. Older, yes.

21:06 Speaker 4 How old is the oldest?

21:07 Speaker 2 He’ll be twelve soon.

21:08 Speaker 4 Wow.

21:09 Speaker 2 And people don’t know how to take it. When we’re walking around in Israel, people don’t make much of it. They might think I’m a preschool teacher out with children, or that they’re my siblings. They don’t get worked up about children. But where we live, many women hardly have children. Lots of people choose not to have children at all, or to have just one or two. So when they see the quadruplets, they say, “Poor dad, poor mom, pobre papá, pobre...” They really do. And they ask me, “That’s it now, right?” And then they see me—and it’s not from eating hamburgers. So, yes.

21:38 Speaker 4 Whoa.

21:38 Speaker 2 I think this is really one of the things we were talking about. Just as shlichus shows you that you’re capable of more, this is like “I will pour out blessing for you.” I’ve always loved that song, that niggun: “I will pour out blessing for you beyond measure, until your lips wear out from saying, ‘Enough.’” You wonder, when do you reach the point of saying, “Enough, how much good can there be?” Who says “enough” to goodness? What is this overwhelming goodness? That’s how I felt with the quadruplets.

22:08 Speaker 4 Wow.

22:09 Speaker 2 Really. When they were born in the operating room, that’s what I played—a recording of the Rebbe singing it. Because when we found out about the quadruplets, I truly felt it was a tremendous blessing.

22:16 Speaker 4 But did you reach “enough”?

22:18 Speaker 2 I didn’t reach “enough,” no. There can be more...

22:20 Speaker 4 You need quintuplets, sextuplets.

22:20 Speaker 2 An abundance to share. There you go, see? Someone saw me with the quadruplets maybe a year later, and she said, “Wow!” I told her, “Now pray that there’ll be more, with Hashem’s help.”

22:31 Speaker 4 Ah.

22:31 Speaker 2 So, yes.

22:33 Speaker 4 So have you decided on a “may it be soon by you”?

22:34 Speaker 2 No, I haven’t decided on a “may it be soon by me.” That’s not relevant. But yes, baruch Hashem... The truth is, look, our Sheina was born into shlichus, and so was Schneur. And one thing that was always very, very difficult for me was thinking, what will happen? The children don’t have friends their own age. I kept davening to Hashem about it. I said, “Maybe a family with children could come here...” But apparently it’s easier to have quadruplets than to get a family with children to move to Bariloche.

23:03 Speaker 4 Just open a high school.

23:03 Speaker 2 Exactly, yes. I always say, open a high school.

23:05 Speaker 4 That’s exactly it.

23:07 Speaker 2 I don’t know.

23:07 Speaker 4 They really are the best of friends. Does that run in your family? Or is it—

23:09 Speaker 2 No, no. It’s a blessing. First of all, it’s a miracle, a wonder. But we went through a period of fertility treatments, and we were actually in Israel for treatment at the time. And...

23:21 Speaker 4 Did they tell you it might be twins, maybe triplets?

23:23 Speaker 2 No, the doctor said it wouldn’t even work. He basically told us, “Move on,” and that was that. Then I needed to take a break, and we said, “Okay, we’ll go back to our shlichus, and when we have a chance, we’ll continue.” And suddenly we found out I was pregnant. So we said, “Okay, we’ll just have an ultrasound and go back.” Just an ultrasound, because the conditions there really weren’t suitable for giving birth, for a pregnancy, all of that. And then he saw quadruplets. That was—honestly, it was a huge miracle. It was one of—

23:53 Speaker 4 He said that?

23:54 Speaker 2 No, no. The doctor—I almost had to call a doctor for the doctor, because he nearly fainted right there.

24:00 Speaker 4 Wow.

24:01 Speaker 2 He said, “Oh, one. I see one.” Then he said, “Oh, okay, there are two.” And then suddenly he—he got really frightened. He started saying, “No, no, no, no.” He really panicked.

24:11 Speaker 4 Going wild in there.

24:12 Speaker 2 He really panicked, and…

24:14 Speaker 4 Oh my gosh.

24:15 Speaker 2 Then he said, “There are four babies here.”

24:18 Speaker 4 Wow.

24:18 Speaker 2 Listen, it was a shock. I was laughing and crying at the same time. I couldn’t even exchange a word with my husband because the doctor was so worked up. He just wanted us to sign consent for a reduction, and he kept warning us, using very, very harsh, frightening words. Even now I think, how did I do it? How did I—

24:39 Speaker 4 It meant going against everything… From their perspective, medicine is saying unequivocally that this isn’t…

24:46 Speaker 2 Yes, that it wasn’t an option. That it wasn’t right to keep them. It was dangerous for the mother, dangerous for the children. But I remember that I didn’t even speak to my husband then. We barely exchanged half a glance. We just waited to get out of the doctor’s office, away from all his dire predictions, Hashem protect us. I remember going down in the elevator in silence. You leave the doctor’s office, and no one knows. No one knows what they told you or what’s happening to you.

25:13 Speaker 4 You went in with one child and came out with four.

25:15 Speaker 2 Yes. You’re quiet. We went down in the elevator in total silence. My husband and I didn’t speak, didn’t exchange a word. As soon as we left the building, I said to my husband, “Listen, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not touching any of them. If there are other quadruplets in the world, if it’s possible to bring quadruplets into the world, and we’ll write to the Rebbe—I’m not doing it. I can’t reduce them.” It’s such a hard word, and we had wanted children so badly. I wasn’t thinking at all about the… I remember telling him, “We’re hardworking. We can do this.” I didn’t understand the—

25:47 Speaker 4 The true meaning of—

25:50 Speaker 2 Listen, we have five hundred travelers a day, so you—

25:53 Speaker 4 Four more.

25:53 Speaker 2 Quadruplets, yes.

25:55 Speaker 4 Wait, and in practice you had to stay in Israel to come for—

25:57 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, I had to stay and be monitored. So we wrote to the Rebbe. My husband told me that he felt the same way, but he hadn’t wanted to say a word about it because it was my decision, and he didn’t want to influence me. Obviously, anything he said would have an effect. So he told me, “Okay, whatever you decide, that’s what we’ll do.” And I have to say, we called rabbis, and they all told us to do a reduction—emphatically. Except for one Chabad rabbi. Chabad rabbis, of course. One Chabad rabbi told us, “Look, maybe wait until after thirty days. There may be a way to wait a little while, and then you can decide or see what the situation is.” Anyway, we wrote to the Rebbe. It was publicized on all the television channels. We received a blessing about it through Igros Kodesh. The doctor had said that the risks with quadruplets were either in quantity or in quality: either, G-d forbid, losing all of them, Hashem protect us, or, Hashem protect us, their being born too early with serious problems. He used very, very, very harsh words. Truly terrifying. So we wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe wrote in Igros Kodesh. We received a blessing. The Rebbe wrote “Mazel tov” on the pregnancy, blessed the pregnancy, and wrote that there should be blessing in quantity and in quality.

27:02 Speaker 4 Wow.

27:02 Speaker 2 In the doctor’s own words. After that I said, what can I say? I have the blessing. We went to a private doctor, and I did have a challenging pregnancy, of course, but I was up and about. I wasn’t on bed rest. I mean, until week thirty I was at home, taking it easy for the pregnancy, you know—

27:22 Speaker 4 How did you move around?

27:24 Speaker 2 I even worked for a few months—

27:26 Speaker 4 Wow.

27:26 Speaker 2 Until the fifth month, I think. How do you move? I don’t know, you just do it. I think life on shlichus trains us to be active all the time, always doing things. In general, we try to be like that. You have to live. If you’re alive, then live.

27:40 Speaker 4 Yes.

27:40 Speaker 2 You understand? So you keep working and moving and doing things.

27:43 Speaker 4 No, but practically speaking… There are also people for whom resting is a punishment.

27:46 Speaker 2 Yes, I really think so.

27:49 Speaker 4 But physically, could you tie your shoes by yourself?

27:52 Speaker 2 Physically, it was very, very hard. By the fifth month, I looked at least eight or nine months pregnant. They were also born at very good weights. Lin was almost two kilos, about a kilo and three-quarters.

27:59 Speaker 4 When were they born in the end?

28:01 Speaker 2 And one was smaller. They were born at thirty-two weeks because, in a way—I don’t want to say they forced me, but they told me, “Listen.” Even the private doctor we were seeing, who specializes in multiple pregnancies and all that, told us, “If you make it to thirty-two weeks, break out the champagne.” She didn’t believe it would happen. And at Sheba Medical Center, where they’re experts, they said, “Listen, the babies look good, their weights are good. Let’s not take a risk.” Every day was frightening. I was having three or four ultrasounds a day. You can’t monitor all of them together, and each ultrasound took an hour. It was just… Anyway, there were complications too, but we didn’t give up on them. When you see them, you’ll understand. It really is an incredible miracle.

28:44 Speaker 4 That’s unbelievable.

28:45 Speaker 2 At thirty weeks I went to Sheba Medical Center. I thought we’d get to know the place. When I came in, they asked me what was going on, and I told them, “It’s quadruplets—a quadruplet pregnancy.” They said, “Where have you been until now?” They couldn’t understand how I hadn’t been hospitalized earlier. Usually, women go on very strict bed rest for months. And I really had… Hakadosh Boruch Hu sends good angels. During the pregnancy, I was at a clinic for some routine tests, and I sat down across from the receptionist and started talking to her. For some reason, we’d been careful not to tell anyone, but I told her, “It’s a quadruplet pregnancy.” I don’t know why it just slipped out. She was a frum woman. And she said, “You know, my daughter has quadruplets.”

29:29 Speaker 4 Wow.

29:29 Speaker 2 What are the chances? It’s impossible. I asked, “Could you put me in touch with her?” Until then, I hadn’t managed to get in touch with any mother of quadruplets. Her name is Goldie Green. She’s a mother of quadruplets—two boys and two girls.

29:41 Speaker 4 Like yours.

29:41 Speaker 2 Yes. And she was simply my angel the whole way through. She supported me emotionally and helped with the practical details. She had also been at Sheba before us, and I really felt that Hashem was giving me exactly the tools I needed. Of course, it was hard. It’s important to emphasize that too. When we talk about tools and blessings, that doesn’t mean there weren’t challenging moments. There were very challenging moments. It was a pregnancy during which I could barely eat. It was very hard for me, and I hardly slept. Physically, it was very, very difficult for my body. But you have to understand that Hakadosh Boruch Hu sent good people along the way and truly carried me. After the quadruplets were born, really… Wow, it’s… You’re immediately there, after giving birth, after surgery. It was a C-section. A few hours after the surgery—six hours—I was already on my feet, making sure they would get, in those first months, until… You know, for preemies there’s the issue of milk. You’re familiar with that.

30:41 Speaker 4 Milk from Jews, right.

30:42 Speaker 2 Right. It mattered deeply to me, even though the rabbi told me that this was a matter of pikuach nefesh, that there was no reason to insist on it and no problem with preemies receiving milk from non-Jews. But it mattered deeply to me that they receive my breast milk, and baruch Hashem, I was able to give all four of them breast milk for a few months.

30:55 Speaker 4 Oh, how intense. Wow, wow, wow.

30:59 Speaker 2 You can imagine how intense that was after the whole pregnancy and the surgery.

31:02 Speaker 4 And taking care of the children.

31:03 Speaker 2 And taking care of the children, running between all four of them in the neonatal unit.

31:08 Speaker 4 Wow.

31:08 Speaker 2 Yes.

31:09 Speaker 4 Tell me how—I’m just curious about the practical side. Four babies are born.

31:12 Speaker 2 Yes.

31:13 Speaker 4 One, two, three, four. How do you remember? The first one? The second one?

31:17 Speaker 2 So—

31:17 Speaker 4 How do you tell them apart?

31:18 Speaker 2 They had four separate placentas. They look different. They’re not identical twins. I could tell them apart right away. Some people said they looked alike. I don’t think they look that much alike. I don’t know. There’s a resemblance between them, but not…

31:27 Speaker 4 Like siblings.

31:28 Speaker 2 Yes. Basically, we put up a whiteboard. Baby one, baby two. The girls got names relatively quickly, but with the boys it took time—a month before they could have their bris. So we wrote down their names, and then there were vitamins, diapers—whether they’d had a full diaper, to keep track of that—when they started eating, and what else was there? What else did we have on there? Weight.

31:49 Speaker 4 Wow.

31:50 Speaker 2 And you just erase, write, erase, write. But the thing is, you start—say my husband and I, I start with the first baby, then the second. Now, these are tiny babies. They couldn’t nurse, so I was pumping all the milk. And then you start with the first one. It takes about an hour. Do you remember what that’s like? Maybe you don’t, because I haven’t—

32:08 Speaker 4 Oh, with, uh...

32:08 Speaker 2 It takes about an hour because you have to feed them, and you feed them very slowly, and then burp them.

32:12 Speaker 4 No, I don’t have experience with preemies.

32:13 Speaker 2 And there’s the diaper. No, even a baby you’re feeding formula, say, takes time. A hungry baby.

32:20 Speaker 4 Yes.

32:20 Speaker 2 So it takes about an hour. You know, diaper, clothes, changing, spit-up, burping, uh—

32:26 Speaker 4 And you’re already packing food for them.

32:27 Speaker 2 Bottles, sterilizing, baths. All while running a household, while there are two other children, and while you’re a woman who’s just been through a pregnancy and surgery with quadruplets. So it really was the first, then the second, the third, and the fourth, and then all over again, because it was every three hours.

32:45 Speaker 4 That’s what you do all day. Of course.

32:46 Speaker 2 All day.

32:47 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

32:48 Speaker 2 We really weren’t sleeping.

32:49 Speaker 4 Did you have help?

32:50 Speaker 2 Um, not enough. I mean, you really need an endless amount of help for this.

32:55 Speaker 4 You need another adult for each child.

32:56 Speaker 2 Think about it: when one baby is born, there’s usually the father, the mother, grandparents on both sides, sisters, neighbors, maybe a babysitter, and older siblings if there are any. So we did have some help from family. But listen, we were in Israel at first, and everyone in the family works, you know, and people have their own families. Whoever could came and helped out. But, uh, at the end of the day, it was us. Of course our parents and everyone who could helped, and they helped a lot, but it was just very, very hard. We tried bringing in different women to help here and there. We hired women, you know, someone to come help with laundry, to help a little with the children. It was also very hard to let other people, uh, take care of the children. Um, but in practice, it was us. It was us, the father and mother, who had to take care of them. When we went for follow-up appointments with the private doctor, she told us, “Listen, I know about your shlichus. Fine, you want to have quadruplets. But what can I tell you? You need to take at least five years off from shlichus, because this is going to take over your whole life now.” And we said, “Okay, okay.” And when they were three months old, we flew back.

34:12 Speaker 4 Oh my. How? Physically, I mean.

34:15 Speaker 2 Physically, we brought two more girls to hold them, because—

34:18 Speaker 4 What, you have to?

34:19 Speaker 2 Yes, there’s no other way to fly, because you don’t buy tickets for them, but you have to have an adult to hold each one.

34:23 Speaker 4 Right, each baby has to be with an adult.

34:25 Speaker 2 And you need people to hold them on every flight. So that was three flights.

34:29 Speaker 4 Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

34:31 Speaker 2 No, listen, it was... We made a slightly longer stop in Buenos Aires, the capital, and there were some wonderful women there who helped me here and there as much as they could. My husband flew back to Bariloche and returned, and then we simply went back with them. We got to Bariloche with them, and there were moves between apartments on top of the flights and everything. Looking back, I don’t know. There’s no logical explanation.

34:56 Speaker 4 It’s funny that you say “looking back,” because even now you have quadruplets who are, uh—

35:00 Speaker 2 Right. I can look back at yesterday, too. Right.

35:02 Speaker 4 How old are they now?

35:03 Speaker 2 They’re two and a half now.

35:05 Speaker 4 When do they... When do they turn three?

35:07 Speaker 2 At the end of Tishrei.

35:09 Speaker 4 Oh, how funny. So you gave birth the same month I did, and I had one baby.

35:12 Speaker 2 Yes. How’s it going for you, tell me?

35:15 Speaker 4 I almost feel bad. There I was, taking it easy while you were juggling all of that. Wow.

35:19 Speaker 2 No, Boruch Hashem, I think that, again—we already talked about joy and all that—Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us blessings and challenges each time, and you simply have to understand that this is what you have and see how to enjoy it, you know. And we tried to enjoy it. Of course we fall apart and pick ourselves back up several times a day, but overall, Boruch Hashem, the children have brought me a lot of serenity. It sounds crazy, but the quadruplets brought me serenity. Something in my soul changed and became more peaceful, more calm, I feel.

35:49 Speaker 4 Interesting.

35:50 Speaker 2 That understanding that, first of all, things aren’t up to me. I mean, I don’t—

35:54 Speaker 4 They sort of forced you—

35:55 Speaker 2 Exactly.

35:56 Speaker 4 To accept that.

35:57 Speaker 2 Yes.

35:57 Speaker 4 To let go of control, and so, uh—

35:59 Speaker 2 Yes. Listen, to let go more, yes. Uh, you have no choice. You understand? You can’t lose your mind over every bit of dirt or every mess. Really, what do you have left to give them? Love and calm. Whether they’re dressed alike or not dressed alike. You know, I used to make a big deal of it. You know how it is: first child, second child, fourth child. You know how that goes.

36:20 Speaker 4 For you, the third and the sixth came together.

36:22 Speaker 2 Yes, so the third and the sixth got the same treatment. That’s how it is.

36:25 Speaker 4 Wow.

36:26 Speaker 2 Yes, Boruch Hashem. And now they’re very excited, too. They know I have a baby in my tummy, and they already talk to him and say, “Come, come.” They’re getting him ready.

36:33 Speaker 4 Come, you’ve got four bodyguards here.

36:36 Speaker 2 Right. Even now I say to myself, “Oh my, how?” I mean, “How do we do this now?” We’ll do it the way we did everything else. Shlichus was preparation for the quadruplets, and the quadruplets are preparation for...

36:45 Speaker 4 I think that, really, when you believe that—if—we have hashgachah pratis here, right?

36:50 Speaker 2 Exactly.

36:51 Speaker 4 If Hakadosh Boruch Hu made sure this would happen, then He’ll also make sure it goes well.

36:55 Speaker 2 Right.

36:55 Speaker 4 Meaning, I have the strength to do this as well as I can. Maybe not in the best possible way, not always. Like you said, there are difficulties, there are times you fall apart and all that, but it’s part of the journey.

37:06 Speaker 2 Right. We believe that with complete faith. You really need a great deal of faith here, and that’s very strengthening. Um, the faith and the understanding that Hashem really gave you this, so He’ll give you the strength for it. And truly, Boruch Hashem, we’re managing. I think that even this year—I mean, since we returned with the quadruplets, which was already two years ago, since we went back to shlichus and all that—we’ve had stories, and... I mean, there’s been incredible activity at the Chabad House. You understand? You’d think it would make the work harder, but I feel it brought—I don’t know—some kind of double blessing.

37:41 Speaker 4 Absolutely. It brings blessing.

37:42 Speaker 2 Fourfold. Really, really, in every area. You see that a child brings their own blessing.

37:47 Speaker 4 How amazing.

37:48 Speaker 2 And when there are four, they bring a truly great, fourfold blessing, and... anything is possible. It asks a lot of us. It’s a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous, tremendous amount of work.

37:57 Speaker 4 Are they with you during the day?

38:00 Speaker 2 Yes, in Bariloche they are. Now we’ve come to Israel, and Boruch Hashem, we have a lot of work here too, so many things to do. We’re really at the beginning of things here, and... Friends tell me, “Great, you’ve come to rest,” and all that. No, no. Um, so we put them in a really sweet little daycare from eight to two.

38:17 Speaker 4 It’s nice that they had four places available.

38:19 Speaker 2 Yes, it really is. It’s a small place, very close to where we’re staying in Petach Tikva. And... the children are happy. They enjoy it, you know, they have other friends there. I wasn’t sure. I said, “I’ll put them in and we’ll see how it goes,” and they’re really, really happy.

38:35 Speaker 4 And in Bariloche they’re with you every morning.

38:36 Speaker 2 Yes, in Bariloche they’re with us all day. At different times we’ve brought people in. For one period of two months, we brought two really sweet Brazilian Chabad girls who came to help me a little with the children. That was during the season I told you about, when there were about five hundred people—just an unbelievable number of people—and I really needed that extra help. So they were there a few hours a day, when I knew they were with the children. I never leave them alone with someone who isn’t Jewish, for example. Um, the travelers sometimes help me with them. My oldest is simply a little mother. Sheiny is almost twelve. She taught Schneur to read and write—my son is six. She watches the children and does activities with them.

39:12 Speaker 4 That’s sweet.

39:12 Speaker 2 And my husband and I are constantly splitting up so that one of us is with the children and the other is at the Chabad House. We brought in a few Chabad boys, Temimim, to help us at the Chabad House too. But listen, it’s very, very, very intense work. Until six months ago, the Chabad House was inside our home, so the children were simply with me while I welcomed people.

39:33 Speaker 4 Wait, and the five hundred people at the Shabbos meal—that was in your home too?

39:35 Speaker 2 Because of October 7, the numbers actually went down. One big Shabbos, we had a hundred and fifty, a hundred and seventy people, which isn’t too bad, numbers-wise. And the house we rented was big. There was hashgachah pratis in everything, everything, everything. We really can host that many people here.

39:51 Speaker 4 You’re putting out a book.

39:52 Speaker 2 Yes. Actually, Yedioth Ahronoth approached us. The publisher’s—I don’t know what his title is, the CEO?—was with us for a Shabbos with about three hundred people. He heard the stories at the farbrengens and saw my husband and me, and he said, “Listen, you need to put out a book about this.” He really did approach us, and we’re working on that too. Among everything else, you understand?

40:11 Speaker 4 Stories are happening all around you...

40:12 Speaker 2 Yes, really, real miracle stories.

40:15 Speaker 4 Give us one, maybe—

40:17 Speaker 2 Wow, I have so many, honestly, I—

40:18 Speaker 4 Something recent.

40:21 Speaker 2 Oh, wow. Let me think for a second what would be the right one to tell. We’ve really seen miracles in every area—moving between houses, everything, people helping us...

40:34 Speaker 4 Tell me, in practice, people come to you for the Shabbos meal.

40:37 Speaker 2 Yes.

40:38 Speaker 4 With six small children, do you have the emotional strength to give people attention on that level? You’re hosting people in your home, after all. It’s—

40:46 Speaker 2 Right.

40:48 Speaker 4 It’s draining.

40:49 Speaker 2 Yes.

40:49 Speaker 4 Even when you love it, and it’s fun and it’s nice, in the end it’s incredibly, incredibly demanding. How do you actually do it?

40:58 Speaker 2 Honestly, I don’t know. I sort of take a deep breath and go back in.

41:03 Speaker 4 Because the children depend on you, they...

41:05 Speaker 2 So, look, Shabbos starts very late in Bariloche. Say we invite people for eight-thirty, seven-thirty, for the Shabbos meal. The quadruplets are asleep; they’re not with us at the meal. Some things don’t happen the way they do in other homes—or maybe they do; I don’t know how it is for you in Israel. But the older ones are at the meals. They take part too: they serve, clear plates, talk to people, welcome them. One of them stands up and recites pesukim. You know, they’re very, very involved. I wait tables, clear plates, welcome people, hug them. Of course, before that I light the candles and all that, and my husband oversees everything too. But I have to admit, I don’t think there’s a single Friday night when we’ve sat down—“sat down”—at the table. It doesn’t happen, because we don’t have... We don’t have waiters, you understand? The boys work very hard physically. We work physically—everyone does, all the time. I can barely stand—

41:59 Speaker 4 You don’t have waiters because there’s no one to hire, basically.

42:01 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s very hard to find staff. It’s expensive too, but even putting money aside, it’s very, very hard to find people who will work in Bariloche itself. In the big cities it’s easier, but where we are, finding staff—people who will come work for you, and keep coming consistently—is much more complicated and difficult. They always say they’ll come, and then they don’t show up. Money doesn’t help; you can’t buy their commitment. That sounds magical, but it’s awful. You’d rather have people who... yeah. I come to Israel and see the job ads here and how hardworking people are—it’s something else entirely, a parallel universe. So on Friday nights, look, when there’s a large crowd and I can’t fit more than, say, two hundred and fifty people in one sitting, we do two sittings. Now, with everything you asked about, imagine standing for eighteen hours a day, cooking, peeling, chopping, while pregnant, with quadruplets, with the older children, with everything else in life. And this is twenty-four seven, remember.

42:57 Speaker 4 You see?

42:57 Speaker 2 It’s twenty-four seven.

42:58 Speaker 4 Don’t the travelers sometimes pitch in to help?

43:00 Speaker 2 They often do pitch in to help. But when they reach us, they’re at the beginning of their trip, which makes it a little tricky, because they’ve only just arrived for their vacation. There are little things like that we’ve learned to recognize and take into account. They’ve only just landed, you know? With us, it goes—

43:16 Speaker 4 Not to get the house ready, to peel the [unclear]—

43:18 Speaker 2 Yes, you’ve come to be a guest, in a way. And Bariloche is very expensive, so people count every day they have there and want to make the most of it, because everything costs so much. They do come help, and if I ask, there’s nothing like the Jewish people—of course they’ll pitch in. But I also prefer to treat them and have them come when the food is ready. Anyway, say we do the first sitting from seven-thirty until ten-thirty or eleven. I don’t have time to shower for Shabbos—that’s how it is. So from seven-thirty until ten-thirty or eleven, a group of maybe two hundred, two hundred and fifty people comes in. And we do everything—l’chaims, candle lighting, davening, the meal, divrei Torah, everything, everything, everything. Then at ten-thirty or eleven, that whole group leaves and the second group comes in. And what does my husband say? “It’s group B, but it’s not second-rate. They get double.” You need twice the energy.

44:12 Speaker 4 Wow.

44:13 Speaker 2 So nobody feels as though... Yes, and then we can sit with them until two in the morning. After that, at two in the morning, when everyone’s already tired and somehow we still have energy, we have a farbrengen. A smaller group of fifty to seventy people stays, and then they start opening up and telling moving stories... I think what gives us the energy—as you asked, how do we do it?—is the people. When you open the door and someone’s face lights up so much at seeing you, and you realize how much you’re needed, you can’t remain indifferent. It simply recharges you.

44:47 Speaker 4 It fills you back up.

44:48 Speaker 2 Exactly. Like little electric shocks, good ones—

44:52 Speaker 4 Yes.

44:52 Speaker 2 “Wow, thank you so much, you brought me back.” It’s incredible. You see people... It changes lives. Coming into a Chabad House is a life-changing experience, especially at the end of the world.

45:01 Speaker 4 Wow.

45:02 Speaker 2 Yes.

45:02 Speaker 4 We’ll have to come visit. Wait—

45:05 Speaker 2 I want to invite everyone, but I feel bad. I don’t want them to be angry with me afterward for making such a long trip, even though it’s very beautiful there.

45:09 Speaker 4 No, no, they just—simply won’t come. It’s okay, you can feel free to invite them.

45:12 Speaker 2 No, I’d love to. Everyone’s invited.

45:15 Speaker 4 That reminds me: when I was in Kharkiv, I was already posting on my status back then. On Fridays, I’d take pictures of the food for Shabbos and say, “You’re all welcome, come over,” and now I’m a little afraid to do that. You know?

45:27 Speaker 2 Here, they really would come. I’m coming. It’s so nice here.

45:30 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

45:31 Speaker 2 It’s just—

45:31 Speaker 4 I wanted to ask you something else, and I’ve forgotten what it was.

45:36 Speaker 2 Listen, it’s so nice in Israel, though.

45:38 Speaker 4 Yeah? What’s—

45:40 Speaker 2 It’s amazing here.

45:41 Speaker 4 What would you do if someone offered to trade places with you?

45:45 Speaker 2 I don’t know. I’ll tell you something: really, there’s no reason in the world—I wouldn’t live in Bariloche for fifteen minutes if it weren’t for the shlichus. You understand? There are places where you say, “I’d live here.” It’s comfortable; maybe it’s the weather, the scenery, the community. This isn’t... I don’t know. I genuinely wouldn’t live there for a minute if not for the shlichus. Because there’s no reason to. It’s a beautiful place, fine.

46:10 Speaker 4 That’s exactly what I was about to ask—now I remember. Do you ever feel a little like tourists or travelers yourselves, and at least get to enjoy some of that beauty?

46:20 Speaker 2 We do take the children out to see things a bit. Not on very long outings, though the outings there tend to be day trips, you understand? There aren’t many short ones.

46:29 Speaker 4 Treks and things like that.

46:30 Speaker 2 The distances are huge, yes. Together with the children, we’re learning to enjoy what’s around us too—every flower. I love nature very, very much, but I can get just as excited about an enormous lake as I can about an ordinary bee on an anemone, so...

46:47 Speaker 4 You grew up in the countryside, after all.

46:48 Speaker 2 Yes, I grew up in a moshav.

46:50 Speaker 4 Oh, it’s a moshav?

46:51 Speaker 2 It’s a moshav.

46:51 Speaker 4 Kfar Baruch.

46:52 Speaker 2 Well, yes.

46:52 Speaker 4 Oh, Kfar Baruch is its name.

46:54 Speaker 2 Yes. So we enjoy that. And yes, I sometimes take them to the lake. The downside is that it’s really, really cold.

47:03 Speaker 4 The downside is that it’s below zero.

47:04 Speaker 2 Yes, minus six, below zero. So I take them to the lake—the quadruplets and the other children—but you can’t really go in because of the snow. The water is freezing, and it’s all rocks. Here, for example, there’s sand. Those are the kinds of differences I feel.

47:16 Speaker 4 Yes.

47:18 Speaker 2 And every time, you have to bundle them all up and go. It’s not an easy place to raise children. There aren’t really playgrounds or parks like you have here on every corner. You know, within ten minutes of where we are now, there are, I think, four or five huge, amazing, convenient, well-equipped playgrounds. Where we live, it’s a disaster.

47:36 Speaker 4 No, this really is a country for children.

47:38 Speaker 2 It’s an amazing country.

47:39 Speaker 4 It really is a country for children.

47:40 Speaker 2 Honestly, yes. Raising children here is simple. It’s amazing.

47:43 Speaker 4 There are an incredible number of—

47:44 Speaker 2 Right.

47:45 Speaker 4 Children.

47:45 Speaker 2 Right, but the country caters to them, too. And there, like I told you, it doesn’t. People get very excited when they see children there. So there isn’t really a reason—I mean, there’s no reason to live there. But what happened is that I realized we know the place now, we know the people, we know—I mean, I know everything. You understand? It’s like—I can’t just bring in someone who doesn’t know how to do it all as well as possible. It’s become part of me. It’s like—

48:12 Speaker 4 No one could replace you, really.

48:14 Speaker 2 Yes.

48:14 Speaker 4 Wait, when you were here throughout the pregnancy and the birth, was there—

48:17 Speaker 2 We brought in a couple to fill in for us.

48:18 Speaker 4 For a year, basically.

48:19 Speaker 2 It wasn’t a year; it was less. But yes, we brought in a couple to fill in for us. Luckily, it happened toward the end of COVID. Argentina took COVID very seriously. There were very, very long lockdowns, and the number of tourists really dwindled. So we brought in an Argentinian couple who, by the way, also speak Hebrew. They’re really lovely, and they filled in for us until we came back. So yes, I can’t just replace—honestly, it’s strange, and... I don’t know, you understand? It’s strange because, on the one hand, we’re here now and I say to myself, “Wow, how can we possibly go back?” How do you leave Eretz Yisroel? But that’s your shlichus. In the end, everyone takes their assignment, their place. The Rebbe didn’t put us there for no reason. We feel we’re especially well suited to the kind of people there. By the way, my husband was in the army, in the armored corps, and I come from a moshav that isn’t observant—not religious by definition. So when people arrive—

49:18 Speaker 4 Not religious by definition.

49:18 Speaker 2 Yes, and then the travelers come to us, and each of us has something to offer and something to say that really, really opens their hearts. “Where did you grow up? In Kfar Chabad?” I didn’t grow up in Kfar Chabad. “What do you mean, in the Jezreel Valley? So is it a religious moshav?” No. So there’s something that opens people up, both about where I come from and the fact that my husband was in the army.

49:38 Speaker 4 You have more in common.

49:39 Speaker 2 So much, so much in common. The travelers feel comfortable with us very, very quickly.

49:44 Speaker 4 “You’re not like all the other religious people.”

49:45 Speaker 2 Exactly. Yes, exactly. Someone asked me, “Did you become religious?” I told her, “Not yet—I mean, with Hashem’s help.” But I told her, “No, I grew up this way.” She said, “Why?” Then she said, “Well, you’re religious, and you’re really nice.” Just like that. Yes, there are people who think that way. They really don’t know. So many people come to us. There are all kinds of travelers, okay? There are those who go to the Far East, those who go to Australia and New Zealand. The ones who come to South America generally aren’t party people, you know, people who come just to have fun. They’re tougher people, much tougher, who come to go trekking. Lots of kibbutzniks, people from moshavim, down-to-earth types.

50:22 Speaker 4 The Jezreel Valley.

50:22 Speaker 2 Yes, and it fits us perfectly.

50:25 Speaker 4 Wow, that’s incredible.

50:25 Speaker 2 I really love them, and I’m happy to see them. Even though they usually know almost nothing about Judaism and come from places that, on the face of it, have outlooks completely opposite to ours, we have so much in common, and—

50:42 Speaker 4 What actually makes them come into the Chabad House?

50:44 Speaker 2 That’s one of the great gifts of Bariloche. First of all, the fact that we’re there. People want to understand how it’s possible. How can there be a Chabad House in a place like this?

50:53 Speaker 4 You mean they come in to see if it’s real.

50:55 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes, they really do come in. They say, “What is a Chabad House?” They want to understand. They’re simply shocked. So that’s the first thing. It brings a lot of people in to see what’s going on. And then there are a thousand other reasons to come. Someone doesn’t feel well, or something was stolen from them, or something happened to them, or they got into some kind of trouble, or they were kicked out of their hostel and have nowhere to sleep. Or they’re simply hungry for home-cooked food or feeling lonely. We lend out equipment for free, we offer free luggage storage, and we have free activities every evening. And besides that, people can come by all day, and they do.

51:28 Speaker 4 That’s incredible. Even lending out equipment for free sounds like a whole operation to manage in itself.

51:32 Speaker 2 Right. Right. But look, ever since my husband and I arrived in Bariloche, I’m telling you, almost every day we really ask ourselves how we can make the Chabad House better tomorrow. We’re making an effort all day long, always asking, “What will bring in more people? What will bring in more people?” Because we don’t want to miss anyone. We have FOMO. Do you know the term FOMO?

51:49 Speaker 4 Yes.

51:49 Speaker 2 That frantic feeling that you have to fit everything in.

51:51 Speaker 4 That you’re missing out.

51:52 Speaker 2 Exactly. The travelers have FOMO all the time: “I have to do this, and I have to do that.” They’re not going to come back to South America, back to Argentina. You do this once in a lifetime, so you don’t want to miss anything. And in my mind, it’s about the Jews traveling there. I have to reach them—all of them. I have to get to know them—all of them. It really burns in my heart.

52:08 Speaker 4 Maybe this is the only time in their lives they’ll even hear about it.

52:10 Speaker 2 Definitely. There have been quite a few who traveled the world for six years and came into a Chabad House for the first time at ours, because of all sorts of things we came up with in case someone might need them.

52:21 Speaker 4 You know, when you listed the things that bring people into the Chabad House, it sounded to me like children who need their parents.

52:25 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

52:26 Speaker 4 If you’ve lost something, if you’ve fallen, if—

52:28 Speaker 2 Exactly, if—

52:29 Speaker 4 Someone did something to you or took something from you.

52:31 Speaker 2 Right. They tell us, “We traveled as far away from Mom and Dad as we could, and in the end, what are we looking for? Mom and Dad.”

52:35 Speaker 4 Yes.

52:35 Speaker 2 Right.

52:35 Speaker 4 Of course, you’re a little older now, but at the beginning, twenty-year-old kids were coming to you.

52:41 Speaker 2 Yes. Honestly, it’s really funny, because when we arrived, I was by far the youngest of all the travelers. They come after the army, so even the girls are at least around twenty-one. There’s no one younger than twenty-one. Then one day I was cooking—and I’m tiny anyway, barely five feet tall—and a traveler came over to me and said, “Tell me, Rebbetzin, how old are you?” I told her, “I’m nineteen.” She started stroking me and said, “Oh wow, I have a nineteen-year-old sister.”

53:08 Speaker 4 So at first you were the younger siblings, and then you became the parents.

53:11 Speaker 2 The younger siblings taking care of sixty-year-olds, too, you know, and sitting and listening to the difficult stories of thirty-year-olds and helping them. Sometimes couples travel there together, so we’re the psychologists and the marriage counselors and everything, everything, everything the travelers need. In the end, we’re there for them.

53:30 Speaker 4 I think there really is something magical about being far away. You’re far from home, and it does something to you. It changes you. It brings things out of you. I’m talking about the travelers.

53:39 Speaker 2 Yes.

53:40 Speaker 4 You’re softer, more open to listening and giving.

53:44 Speaker 2 Absolutely. You don’t have all the background noise, and often you really let yourself be yourself.

53:51 Speaker 4 Yes, all the barriers and—look, in Israel there’s so much stress, so much pressure.

53:57 Speaker 2 Right.

53:58 Speaker 4 I think a lot of people never even get a moment to stop and think: Who am I? What am I? What do I really feel? What do I really think? What do I really connect with? And suddenly you go far away and see life from a different perspective.

54:11 Speaker 2 Exactly. It really gives you a second chance to be heard. Look, if I appeared on television—even on television, which you’d think would mean I’d reached people—and tried to express my opinion and talk a little, lots of people could just change the channel and move on. But when I’m sitting with a traveler who has never had a conversation with a religious person, man or woman, who has never heard Chassidus or learned about Judaism, and he’s already sitting in my home—he came because he needed me. We’re eating food I made for him, we’ve become good friends, and I’ve already helped him. So now he listens, and suddenly he sees, “Wait, this isn’t so terrible.” Suddenly he discovers new things about himself and about Judaism. It’s extraordinary. It’s an extraordinary opportunity. Do you know how many bar mitzvahs we’ve held at our Chabad House? We have this bottle of very, very fine liquor that my husband received as a gift from a Mexican man whose life he saved. Anyway, he told my husband, “I want to give you—”

55:07 Speaker 4 A Mexican man whose life he saved. Never mind. Okay.

55:10 Speaker 2 Yes, just a little thing. So my husband told him, “Absolutely not.” The man wanted to give him gifts and things, but my husband refused. Then he said, “I’ll give you this fine liquor worth several thousand dollars.” So my husband said, “You know what? I’ll accept that. I’ll save it for bar mitzvahs.” And it’s already nearly gone.

55:27 Speaker 4 Oh, when you say bar mitzvahs, you mean...

55:29 Speaker 2 Karkafta.

55:30 Speaker 4 Karkafta, ah.

55:30 Speaker 2 A Jew putting on tefillin for the first time—

55:31 Speaker 4 I was picturing some thirteen-year-old boy traveling through the Chabad House.

55:33 Speaker 2 Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You know what? In one year we had a hundred-year-old Jew, and Jews in their fifties and sixties, and seventeen-year-olds and twenty-three-year-olds and thirty-two-year-olds—every age. Listen, the numbers! And in Israel it simply hadn’t been accessible to them; it hadn’t been part of their lives. The bar mitzvah stories alone could fill a whole book—a whole book about our bar mitzvahs and all sorts of things that happened for the first time at the Chabad House. Because, like you said, something opens up. I think it also helps that nobody sees you. The travelers come, and they often tell me that when you’re in Israel, people expect you to respond a certain way. You’re in a particular environment. There, they’re on their own, they’re independent, and suddenly they have the freedom to choose.

56:20 Speaker 4 Wow.

56:20 Speaker 2 To decide, to listen, to see, to explore. It’s amazing.

56:23 Speaker 4 That reminds me of an Israeli who came to us. We tried to convince him to put on tefillin, and in the end he said, “Okay, Rabbi, I’ll do it for you.”

56:32 Speaker 2 Yes.

56:32 Speaker 4 For the first time.

56:33 Speaker 2 Wow.

56:33 Speaker 4 “No photos, and don’t send it anywhere.”

56:35 Speaker 2 Oh, of course, yes. You can’t mention names.

56:36 Speaker 4 So nobody finds out.

56:36 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

56:37 Speaker 4 So nobody hears about it.

56:37 Speaker 2 Right. We have a special room for that, you know?

56:39 Speaker 4 A secret room for—

56:40 Speaker 2 It’s the dough room, where I don’t let anyone come in. We’ve held lots of bar mitzvahs there, with fifty or sixty kilos of dough around me and Jews having their bar mitzvahs.

56:47 Speaker 4 A real underground operation.

56:47 Speaker 2 Yes, and you can’t say names, and you can’t—We have whole stories about it.

56:50 Speaker 4 Wow, that’s incredible.

56:52 Speaker 2 It’s incredible and amazing and moving. I mean...

56:55 Speaker 4 I wish I could be a fly on the wall there.

56:57 Speaker 2 I’m telling you, you—On the one hand, it’s so nice to be here, and on the other, as we’re talking, I suddenly miss it. I really could tear up. You know what? That’s what keeps me so full of energy in my shlichus. My feelings about these things haven’t grown dull.

57:14 Speaker 4 You haven’t gotten used to it.

57:15 Speaker 2 I haven’t gotten used to it. I genuinely get excited. As we’re talking, I’m picturing that room and the bar mitzvahs we’ve had there, and it really moves me. Suddenly I could tear up, because it’s an amazing thing. In the end, yes, we all want to pamper ourselves and enjoy life, and everyone wants her own space. But in a world of “me, me, me” and “what’s right for me” all the time, you suddenly see that what really makes us feel best is simply giving. My husband always tells the travelers: “Nasan”—“gave”—reads the same forward and backward in Hebrew. Because you immediately receive something back. It’s a boomerang. And it moves me so much to give these Jews the opportunity, to help them, to make them happy. Especially after October 7, it’s been a lifeline for so many travelers. You can’t explain it. You know, we’ve had several travelers we saved from suicide—

58:04 Speaker 4 Wow.

58:05 Speaker 2 And young people on drugs, and people who were “just” heartbroken. I say “just” as though heartbreak is a small thing. People came and thanked my husband and me: “Thank you for giving us...”

58:14 Speaker 4 A new lease on life.

58:15 Speaker 2 A chance to share. Really.

58:18 Speaker 4 Wow.

58:19 Speaker 2 You really see how the Rebbe cares for every Jew, and how no one will be left behind. We’ve reached all kinds of Jews, including Jews who are very isolated. Locals, too, who live four or five hours away from us, or farther. There are all kinds of stories like that, and stories about the travelers. You see what a revolution the Rebbe brought about in the world through the Chabad Houses. People talk about revolutionaries—this is a revolution so enormous, so meaningful. What tremendous power. You know, people in the world talk about “peace and love,” about love and peace. Everyone expresses it in their own way. At Chabad Houses, it happens every day.

58:56 Speaker 4 For real.

58:57 Speaker 2 All day long. For real.

58:58 Speaker 4 There, it really happens.

58:58 Speaker 2 The genuine thing. You walk in, and it doesn’t matter how you’re dressed, what you think, what you do, who you are—none of it. Whatever you need, you’ll get. You know our passports were once stolen? So when we crossed the border, we called the embassy.

59:11 Speaker 4 Wait, wait, wait, hold on.

59:12 Speaker 2 Oh, yes, another story.

59:13 Speaker 4 When were your passports stolen?

59:15 Speaker 2 About fourteen years ago.

59:17 Speaker 4 No, at home?

59:18 Speaker 2 No. We crossed the border. We had to cross into Chile, the neighboring country. It was about an eight-hour drive, I think. We had to cross the border. We still weren’t really established there; we weren’t locals yet.

59:28 Speaker 4 Oh, because you were...

59:29 Speaker 2 We ended up being held there. Yes, you see? There’s no end to the bizarre stories...

59:32 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

59:32 Speaker 2 Yes. We were held because they were afraid...

59:35 Speaker 4 So you found yourself in detention in Chile, yes.

59:37 Speaker 2 It’s just unbelievable. Listen. But that isn’t even the point. I wanted to... Yes, that’s just a little aside, but we had a miraculous story there too... No, such bizarre stories.

59:47 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

59:47 Speaker 2 Anyway, we called the embassy and told them our passports had been stolen. They told us, “Go to Chabad.”

59:52 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

59:53 Speaker 2 We told them, “We are Chabad.” Yes.

59:56 Speaker 4 That’s incredible.

59:56 Speaker 2 And you realize—that’s what Chabad Houses are. It’s all voluntary, all driven by a sense of shlichus. And you realize that when you do things with that sense of shlichus, it has a value that no amount of money in the world could match.

1:00:11 Speaker 4 Yes.

1:00:11 Speaker 2 Because tell me, what price could you put on it? What salary could someone earn for working 24/7 and always, always being ready? We’re always on call. At any moment, someone could walk in needing something. This happened to him, that happened to her, something else happened. One Friday afternoon, two hours before Shabbos, an older woman came to me crying. Poor woman—she had apparently sprained her ankle and was very lonely. So I went with her to the hospital. All sorts of things suddenly happen. Hashem protect us—young people who were killed, accidents, things like that. At any moment, someone could walk into your home because something has happened and they need something. You’re on call one hundred percent of the time, without a boss standing over you. It’s really you before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, before the Rebbe, and before the travelers. And you see that when you do things out of a sense of shlichus, there’s great success. And yes, boruch Hashem.

1:00:58 Speaker 5 It really is a strength you can’t explain.

1:01:00 Speaker 2 You can’t explain it. It really makes no sense.

1:01:01 Speaker 5 People don’t understand it.

1:01:03 Speaker 2 There’s no logic to it. Listen.

1:01:03 Speaker 5 It really comes from that education you receive from the Rebbe: yes, this is your role in the world. No questions.

1:01:12 Speaker 2 I’m telling you, I had this... Now that we’ve come to Israel, boruch Hashem, I’ve had the chance to farbreng in many places, meet all kinds of people, and do whatever I can. And you know, I had a bad day? I don’t know. I’d had some early contractions and wasn’t feeling well. A few things had gone wrong, and somehow I ended up lying down on the couch or something. That was...

1:01:32 Speaker 5 By accident.

1:01:32 Speaker 2 I opened one—yes, I opened a video of the Rebbe, and the Rebbe was talking about time, how important time is, and how important our role is. To do everything now, not wait until later. To make use of every moment, because what can happen now is what will happen later. And, you know, the Rebbe was always happy.

1:01:47 Speaker 5 So you’re lying on the couch, and he gets you up.

1:01:49 Speaker 2 Yes. The Rebbe was always happy, but never satisfied.

1:01:52 Speaker 5 Yes.

1:01:52 Speaker 2 As if nothing was ever enough. And I said to myself, “That’s it. That’s me.” Then I left another four requests for more things to do.

1:02:01 Speaker 5 Crazy.

1:02:01 Speaker 2 Because in the end, we have to get moving, get things done, and…

1:02:05 Speaker 5 I was just reading this on Shabbos—it was Parshas Naso.

1:02:08 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:02:09 Speaker 5 And in Bein Hachomos there was an amazing passage from a sicha about how the nesi’im donated wagons to carry the boards and all the vessels. They donated six wagons. And the Rebbe says that the commentators explain that the boards were packed very, very tightly into the wagons. So the question is: Why couldn’t they bring one more wagon? What, were they pinching pennies?

1:02:34 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:34 Speaker 5 Everything there was gold and silver. They couldn’t spare another wagon? And he explains that if there had been another wagon, it wouldn’t have been completely full.

1:02:43 Speaker 2 Wow.

1:02:43 Speaker 5 Because it all fit, even if it was a tight fit. And if they’d brought another wagon, it wouldn’t have been filled completely. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu didn’t create a single thing for no purpose.

1:02:51 Speaker 2 Wow.

1:02:52 Speaker 5 And if that wagon wouldn’t have fulfilled its full potential and purpose, then apparently it wasn’t needed.

1:02:57 Speaker 2 Listen to how beautiful that is.

1:02:58 Speaker 5 It’s incredible. And how much we need to learn from it… Sometimes, like you said, you go to lead a farbrengen. You come back exhausted and say, “That’s it, I’ve done my part for today.” But your next moment is also a moment that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives you and creates especially for you.

1:03:14 Speaker 2 Exactly. Exactly.

1:03:15 Speaker 5 It’s intense to say that. It’s a little hard to breathe when you say it, but…

1:03:18 Speaker 2 Really hard.

1:03:18 Speaker 5 Especially at the end of the day. Come on, we’re going to sleep. You don’t need me to tell you—every day is like that for you. But when you go to sleep after an intense day of doing and giving, it’s something else. It really is.

1:03:30 Speaker 2 That’s so true. Look, in the end, I choose this all over again every day. It’s something you have to keep up. A lot of times we see someone doing something—shlichus, I don’t know, other things, parenting—and we say, “Well, it’s just in their nature. They’re used to it.” That’s not true.

1:03:49 Speaker 5 Right.

1:03:49 Speaker 2 And that’s something I really want to emphasize. Even just about myself, because I often talk and tell stories, and the stories really are hard to believe. I’m telling you, if I hadn’t experienced my own life, I wouldn’t believe them.

1:03:59 Speaker 5 That such a thing exists.

1:03:59 Speaker 2 It really doesn’t make sense. I also feel privileged to be living in a time like the Baal Shem Tov’s, with stories of miracles. And there were good times, too. When we first arrived, it really was like the Baal Shem Tov’s time. But I tell myself, you have to understand that this is daily work. I’m constantly having this conversation with myself, constantly maintaining it and strengthening myself. And really, we wear so many hats: parenting, marriage, shlichus, and taking care of ourselves all the time. And I do my best. But it really is a tremendous amount of work. Don’t get confused—these aren’t things you just pull out of thin air. Some things may be a little easier today because you’re used to them, but I’ve also taken on more things. In other words, if things became easier along the way, more things were added. You understand? More things were added.

1:04:46 Speaker 6 So, learning to remember to appreciate yourself all the time for what you do.

1:04:50 Speaker 2 Yes, though it’s less about appreciating myself and more about people thinking, “Okay, so she can do it, so she…” We were just talking about this.

1:04:56 Speaker 6 Like when people see a woman with lots of children and say, “Well, her pregnancies must be easy, the births must be easy, the children must be easy.”

1:05:00 Speaker 2 Exactly. No, that’s not true. It’s not true.

1:05:01 Speaker 6 No, she works hard. Give her credit.

1:05:03 Speaker 2 Right, right.

1:05:03 Speaker 6 She works hard. She doesn’t sleep at night.

1:05:05 Speaker 2 Right.

1:05:06 Speaker 6 And again, it’s not about competing over who has it hardest, but…

1:05:08 Speaker 2 No, the opposite. It’s about understanding that it has nothing to do with that—that anyone can do it.

1:05:13 Speaker 6 Yes.

1:05:13 Speaker 2 Any woman can. There’s no special qualification. I really think that applies to shluchim, too. When the Rebbe sent shluchim, he didn’t say, “You have to be very smart, charismatic, good-looking,” or whatever. None of that. You want to go on shlichus? You have bittul to the one who sent you? You want it? Then you’re capable of it, and you can do it. None of us was necessarily born the most charismatic or clever or successful. Those things come. You understand? What I’m saying is, the strength comes with the decision. That’s what I mean.

1:05:39 Speaker 6 Absolutely.

1:05:40 Speaker 2 When a woman decides to do something good and she’s really, truly committed to it, she’ll be given the strength. Does it make sense? No, it doesn’t make sense. You ask me how things work at the Chabad House? It doesn’t make sense. It’s not logical.

1:05:50 Speaker 6 Beyond nature.

1:05:51 Speaker 2 Beyond nature. You know what? I’d reach the end of the day completely wiped out. I told you, we had an activity every evening, after a whole day of activities. I mean, “an activity every evening” sounds simple, but there were things to do all day, and in the evening we’d put on a free dinner and have a class or a discussion along with it. And I’m telling you, there were evenings when my legs were already shaking. I genuinely had no strength left, and suddenly I’d find myself doing it. I’d say, “What do you mean? I have to.” Or my daughter would tell me, “Mom, they’ll be waiting for you. They’re waiting for you.” By the way, she also teaches the class. She’s incredible. You should do a podcast with her—she’s more interesting.

1:06:23 Speaker 6 She teaches the classes?

1:06:24 Speaker 2 Yes. My daughter is amazing.

1:06:26 Speaker 6 Oh, wow.

1:06:27 Speaker 2 A child of the Rebbe.

1:06:28 Speaker 6 Oh, wow.

1:06:29 Speaker 2 So that was it, and I’d somehow get through it.

1:06:32 Speaker 6 She had an example to follow.

1:06:32 Speaker 2 Yes. Actually, I have an incredible story about her, because we waited four and a half years for her to be born. I don’t tell this story very often, but we tried fertility treatments and various other things, and our shlichus was very, very challenging. The beginning was… As challenging as it is now with the children.

1:06:49 Speaker 6 And treatments while on shlichus.

1:06:50 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:06:51 Speaker 6 So far away. Wow.

1:06:53 Speaker 2 No, really. And the shlichus was very challenging. The beginning was very, very challenging in many ways. And we were waiting for children, waiting for children, and they didn’t come. I didn’t get pregnant. We didn’t have children. Then my husband and I traveled to the Rebbe, and I told him I wanted to go to the Ohel alone. We hadn’t gone together either, but I said I also wanted to go alone. It was late. I went into the Rebbe’s Ohel. I remember coming to the Rebbe and saying, “Listen, until now I’ve been doing what you want, and I’m doing it sincerely. Hashem is my witness, I’m truly giving it my all. Now do what I’m asking.” I said, “I want children.” I remember it so clearly—that was my conversation with the Rebbe. I said, “Listen, people ask for honor, fame, money, I don’t know what. I want children. That’s basic. I deserve that.” That was it. And I really said it. I said, “I really am giving everything. What about me?” Afterward I went to the Rebbetzin and had the same conversation. I cried a lot, but I didn’t feel broken. If anything, when I came out, I went to my husband and said, “That’s it. With Hashem’s help, we’ll have children now.”

1:08:02 Speaker 6 Wow, that gives me chills.

1:08:03 Speaker 2 Listen, that’s how it was. Really. I can clearly remember the feeling I came out with. It was as though I’d already had a positive pregnancy test. That was the level of certainty I felt. And I’m not a particularly spiritual person. I’m pretty grounded. Or maybe I am—I don’t know. I came out and told my husband, and he was worried about me, you know. So he said, “Well, with Hashem’s help,” and all that. He so badly didn’t want me to be disappointed or hurt. He didn’t understand the whole… I hadn’t even told him what had happened to me there at the Ohel. I only told him afterward. Nine months later, our Sheina was born.

1:08:36 Speaker 6 Wow.

1:08:36 Speaker 2 I had a perfect pregnancy. I worked right up until the day she was born. I got to the hospital already nine or ten centimeters dilated.

1:08:41 Speaker 6 Oh, wow.

1:08:42 Speaker 2 First pregnancy, first birth, almost no pain, no epidural, nothing. Within an hour, she was born. And when they put her on me, they told me to look at the bracelet—to check the number. What was in the middle of it? Seven, seven, nine, eight, ninety.

1:08:55 Speaker 6 Wow. That’s incredible.

1:08:57 Speaker 2 She really is an extraordinary, righteous girl, from the day she was born. She got so many people to light candles and do mitzvos, and she touched so many people. I shouldn’t say she changed them—she illuminated them, because it wasn’t a change in who they are. We’re all Jews, after all...

1:09:18 Speaker 6 Yes.

1:09:18 Speaker 2 It’s there in all of us.

1:09:20 Speaker 6 She revealed it to them.

1:09:21 Speaker 2 Yes, revealed it. She really is an amazing girl.

1:09:22 Speaker 6 There’s something magical about children. When a child comes and asks you to do something, how can you not do it?

1:09:26 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:26 Speaker 6 That’s a power only they have.

1:09:29 Speaker 2 She really is such a special, righteous girl.

1:09:31 Speaker 6 I’m imagining that time when you were waiting for a child, and when you don’t even have one child yet, you must also have thoughts like, who knows if it will ever happen?

1:09:40 Speaker 2 Right.

1:09:42 Speaker 6 Did you imagine that a few years later you’d be sitting here—

1:09:44 Speaker 2 I didn’t imagine it.

1:09:45 Speaker 6 Pregnant with your seventh child? Wow, that’s—

1:09:49 Speaker 2 I think something just shifted. Shlichus gave us this ability to go with the flow. Like I told you, the realization that we simply... we don’t control anything. All the miracles we saw, everything—we—

1:10:00 Speaker 6 Nothing seems impossible.

1:10:01 Speaker 2 No. We know things will work out, with Hashem’s help, that everything will be okay, and that whatever we have is what we have.

1:10:11 Speaker 6 Incredible.

1:10:11 Speaker 2 It’s not that we settle for little, but, in the end, Sheina was born—and then there was just Sheina. It was only five and a half years later that Shneur was born, and we said, “Wonderful, boruch Hashem, we have a son and a daughter.” You understand? And suddenly quadruplets, and then suddenly a natural pregnancy with another child. It’s...

1:10:27 Speaker 6 Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.

1:10:28 Speaker 2 Truly, we’re blessed, and we make our efforts and ask Hashem that things should always be good in a way we can plainly see.

1:10:34 Speaker 6 Absolutely. When you look at the quadruplets, you probably don’t think this—it’s a very difficult thought—but if we had reduced the pregnancy, if we had...

1:10:42 Speaker 2 Honestly, I never thought about reducing it. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t an option in any way. I can tell you that even during the tests the doctor did, when, you know, the images aren’t always very clear, and she’d do this test and that test, she told me, “Look, it’s possible that...” She said some difficult things, even throughout the pregnancy. It was only because I had confidence and the Rebbe’s bracha. Looking back today, I don’t know how I did it. I tell the story and think, “Who was that person? How did you respond that way?”

1:11:07 Speaker 6 That was me.

1:11:08 Speaker 2 But yes, we’re only human, and what I try to do is keep moving forward, not get stuck—that’s what I call it. At the Chabad House too, if I’ve had some difficulty, some setback—and I have, many times. Nothing in life is smooth. There are difficult moments, moments when I couldn’t help someone, moments when someone wasn’t happy. Just think how many people you’re trying to please. It’s an almost unimaginable number. And if you choose to do things, you’re also choosing to make mistakes. So inevitably someone won’t be happy. Say you made nine salads, and someone didn’t like any of the nine. Or you helped someone with something... They also don’t know. Most travelers—

1:11:49 Speaker 6 Speaking of being like a parent: “Mom, I don’t like the food.”

1:11:50 Speaker 2 Exactly, right—parents. Exactly. There will always be complaints. Always. So I say you have to understand that too. I also approach it with humility: yes, there will be failures, and sometimes things won’t work out. And many of the travelers—most of them—don’t know how a Chabad House works. They think we get a salary; they think someone directs us.

1:12:13 Speaker 6 What?

1:12:14 Speaker 2 What, we don’t? Exactly. “Chabad will help.” You know, sometimes when I’m traveling around Israel—

1:12:16 Speaker 6 Chabad, the big organization.

1:12:17 Speaker 2 Sometimes I’m traveling around Israel and happen to get into a conversation with someone. Somehow it comes up that we have a Chabad House, and she says, “You know, we have a shul, and they have a Torah scroll they want to finish. Maybe Chabad could donate a Torah scroll to them? Maybe Chabad could pay to finish their renovations? Maybe Chabad could help me with this? Maybe Chabad could pay for that?” People don’t know how it works. And I think that’s also one of the greatest blessings. I mean, how does it come across?

1:12:38 Speaker 6 It’s flattering.

1:12:39 Speaker 2 It’s amazing.

1:12:40 Speaker 6 How can there be an empire like that without—

1:12:42 Speaker 2 Right.

1:12:43 Speaker 6 Someone somewhere printing dollars?

1:12:44 Speaker 2 Exactly. And... but it also means that a lot of travelers don’t understand why you can’t—

1:12:51 Speaker 6 “Chabad didn’t give me good enough service.”

1:12:53 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. “How could that be?” So I understand that too, and I know nothing is ever one hundred percent, but I—

1:12:59 Speaker 6 Listen, this is an opportunity to tell people who come to Chabad Houses: you’re not coming to a Chabad House run by some central organization. You’re coming to Frady, or Rivka, or Dina, or whoever it may be.

1:13:10 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:11 Speaker 6 And often she’s the one doing the cooking, too.

1:13:13 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:13 Speaker 6 And she’s the one who didn’t sleep that night. Even if she has someone helping her cook and everything else, there’s no organization supporting her. Every couple really has to raise the funds themselves—and, I’d say, somehow bring about miracles themselves.

1:13:25 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:13:26 Speaker 6 So to come with complaints—if you knew what went on behind the scenes, it would be unthinkable. Simply unthinkable.

1:13:34 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And I always tell travelers: apart from the goal, which is the same, every Chabad House is completely different. Only the goal is the same.

1:13:43 Speaker 6 Yes.

1:13:43 Speaker 2 It’s a different couple, a different financial situation, a different location.

1:13:46 Speaker 6 Because people start comparing them for you.

1:13:47 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:13:47 Speaker 6 “In Thailand—”

1:13:49 Speaker 2 “They have more support.”

1:13:50 Speaker 6 “I got better service.”

1:13:51 Speaker 2 Right. Thailand is wonderful, by the way—they’re lovely. But it’s true. So we do our best, and I try to explain the same things two hundred times a day with the same energy.

1:14:02 Speaker 6 Don’t you have a frequently asked questions sheet?

1:14:05 Speaker 2 Listen, we made a questions-and-answers sheet. We put all the information on the wall.

1:14:09 Speaker 6 Children learn.

1:14:10 Speaker 2 People still come and ask. They’re not interested in reading it. Nobody stops to read these days.

1:14:14 Speaker 6 Hearing you say it is part of the experience.

1:14:15 Speaker 2 Nobody stops to read these days. And yes, it’s different in person. It starts a conversation, and we want to start conversations. We don’t just want people to come to the Chabad House to read. By the way, we also have a lending library at the Chabad House, which brings people in too.

1:14:30 Speaker 6 Wow.

1:14:31 Speaker 2 Yes. We do whatever we can. Books that fit our values, of course.

1:14:37 Speaker 6 Yes, yes.

1:14:37 Speaker 2 But yes, we’re constantly sharing that information. And I want to emphasize this whole point that every woman can do it. These aren’t women who are angels or somehow superhuman. You also have to understand that everyone makes mistakes in every area of life, and that’s okay.

1:14:59 Speaker 6 That’s what happens when you do things.

1:15:00 Speaker 2 Yes. You fall and you get back up. And I tell myself: I won’t let it extinguish my drive. That’s something I’ve learned with time. At the beginning, when I was younger, I was more sensitive and more anxious. We also come to understand the size of our responsibility as shluchos. That same fear of missing out that makes me anxious, that drives me to go all out for each person, to keep looking for that Jew and asking how I can have an impact on them and help them—so how awful it feels when someone comes and leaves less than two hundred percent satisfied. And it might even be something I don’t know about. I always wonder: Was there someone I didn’t manage to give a hug to? Someone I didn’t pay enough attention to? I don’t want that. I want everyone to leave feeling uplifted and enchanted, and to go on to other Chabad Houses. So you come to understand that it’s okay, and that not everything depends on us. Again, it’s that place of humility, understanding that people have free choice too, and all those other factors. And we try to do our very best, with Hashem’s help.

1:15:51 Speaker 6 Even the mistakes we made were hashgacha pratis; they were meant to happen.

1:15:53 Speaker 2 Everything is hashgacha pratis. That’s how it is. Yes.

1:15:55 Speaker 6 That always ties up the loose ends. That’s good.

1:15:58 Speaker 2 You can’t beat hashgacha pratis.

1:15:59 Speaker 6 Tell me, when you arrive in Israel, what’s the first thing you... Where do you go first—to Osher Ad?

1:16:04 Speaker 2 Yes. I mean, yes—food.

1:16:06 Speaker 6 So when you arrive from abroad, it’s Osher Ad.

1:16:08 Speaker 2 Food, really. It’s strange, but that’s what gets me.

1:16:13 Speaker 6 Food you didn’t cook yourself.

1:16:15 Speaker 2 Yes! Wow, you know that feeling, huh? You can’t explain it.

1:16:18 Speaker 6 You really can’t understand it.

1:16:20 Speaker 2 Just food you didn’t have to make. You don’t want to cook. You know, there were even periods when it annoyed me to see people baking challah in Israel. Why are you baking challah? Don’t bake challah. I don’t like it. I see dough and it just—it annoys me, like—

1:16:30 Speaker 6 No, and then you see things and say, “Wow.” I remember going to Osher Ad and seeing sifted flour.

1:16:38 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:16:39 Speaker 6 Wow. Wow. People don’t appreciate that enough. Definitely. Definitely.

1:16:42 Speaker 2 Right, right, they don’t. It’s like the saying: the person experiencing the miracle doesn’t recognize it. Look, my little ones—I don’t know how I’m going to get them used to anything else now—but they’re used to going into a supermarket. So there’s that tantrum where kids get upset and lie on the floor because they want some candy. But where we are in Bariloche, there’s nothing like that to buy.

1:16:57 Speaker 6 Wow.

1:16:58 Speaker 2 So instead they shout, “Banana! Orange!” That’s the crisis. The stress and frustration at the supermarket is that you have to pay for it first, because it’s sold by weight. You can’t open it beforehand. If you, say—I don’t know how it is—

1:17:10 Speaker 6 Oh, I get it, I get it. Okay.

1:17:11 Speaker 2 You see?

1:17:11 Speaker 6 It’s not a snack where you can open it and then scan the package.

1:17:13 Speaker 2 I really do get a little frustrated at the supermarket. So that’s the point—

1:17:16 Speaker 6 Times four, why not?

1:17:17 Speaker 2 Exactly. So why not? I really put them in one cart—all four kids sitting in it—and then I have another cart for myself.

1:17:22 Speaker 6 How have you not taken one home?

1:17:24 Speaker 2 Listen. So now they’re in Israel, and suddenly they can have this and they can have that. And dairy foods and all sorts of things—it’s very, very exciting for them. That’s it.

1:17:33 Speaker 6 Wow, how do their stomachs handle all of that? By the way, you go to Osher Ad and you want to load up to take things home, but people don’t understand that most things aren’t practical to take at all. They’re fragile; they won’t last. And then you—

1:17:44 Speaker 2 Three days of travel. Yes.

1:17:45 Speaker 6 You take something and then you’re incredibly stingy with it—

1:17:48 Speaker 2 Exactly.

1:17:48 Speaker 6 In the end, it expires.

1:17:48 Speaker 2 Exactly. Wow, you know it so well. And we’re always thinking about the travelers who’ll come—what will we have for them? So I buy things like soup croutons, which I really like too, or Turkish coffee, or all sorts of things. And it fills entire suitcases, because we get an unbelievable number of travelers. So you have to take very large quantities, and then you’re like, “Oh my goodness, wait—instead of taking clothes for myself, instead of taking treats for myself, instead of a thousand other things I still need.” And some things are really heavy, like books for the children. There’s only so much you can take. But again, today, boruch Hashem, things have improved a little. It’s a little easier to get deliveries from Buenos Aires, the capital, which is a twenty-four-hour drive—

1:18:20 Speaker 6 Right, there’s a very large community there, so surely—

1:18:21 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, there’s a wonderful Jewish community there, and—

1:18:26 Speaker 6 But in the end, it’s not the food you get in Israel.

1:18:27 Speaker 2 No, it’s not the food you get in Israel. They do have things there, but it’s not like—nothing compares to Israel, and prices are very, very, very high. I think Argentina is more expensive than Israel for many of the things we’ve checked. But it’s okay, listen, we manage. We rise above it. In the end, one thing Bariloche has given me is the knowledge that you always manage. You have this, you have that; you don’t have this, you don’t have that. I just adjust to reality, you know? Going through pregnancies there without indulging cravings—it doesn’t matter.

1:18:57 Speaker 6 Yes.

1:18:57 Speaker 2 You crave something, and then what? There’s something about—and honestly, I don’t have cravings. Something in me has just calmed down. A lot, a lot of kabbolas ol. On shlichus you need a lot of humility and a lot of kabbolas ol; otherwise you won’t survive. At least where we are.

1:19:10 Speaker 6 Wow, that’s so true. When there’s no choice, there’s no choice. It makes you grow up so much.

1:19:15 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:19:15 Speaker 6 Don’t you feel about fifty?

1:19:17 Speaker 2 I feel about fifty.

1:19:18 Speaker 6 With all your years of experience.

1:19:18 Speaker 2 I can already see the light. Just kidding. But yes, I feel very grown-up.

1:19:23 Speaker 6 No, but that’s quite a lot of life experience...

1:19:27 Speaker 2 No, listen, what a journey. Sometimes, if I have to sum up a week, I can’t. Like last week. Sometimes I say to my husband, “Was that today? Was that yesterday?” Our lives are really like one long day, because the children, may they be healthy—they’re doing a little better now in Israel, but they don’t sleep through the night. So I’m up a lot at night too. The nights end very late, and the day starts terribly early. So sometimes I genuinely don’t remember. Was it today? Was it yesterday? It was today and yesterday.

1:19:53 Speaker 6 It’s a constant pace like that.

1:19:55 Speaker 2 Yes. You know, young Temimim come to us—young guys with no responsibilities. They’ve just arrived from the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad to pitch in for a few months, and they’re exhausted. After two weeks, some of them already find it hard. And I think to myself, “Hello, I’ve been here for years, pregnant and with the children, and I work much harder than they do.” No question. In every area. You really see that you have to keep going. You can’t stop. You can’t stop for a second to think. Like a centipede that mustn’t stop and think about how it manages all its legs and so on. So don’t stop to think—just keep going.

1:20:31 Speaker 7 Yes, because it keeps rolling along too. If you stop, you have to start all over again.

1:20:36 Speaker 2 It really is...

1:20:39 Speaker 7 Wow.

1:20:39 Speaker 2 Something else entirely. Boruch Hashem.

1:20:41 Speaker 7 I want to ask you to give some kind of message to every woman sitting and listening to you, because we’re here. What do I mean, we’re here? We’re all on shlichus in this world.

1:20:50 Speaker 2 Of course.

1:20:51 Speaker 7 But someone listening to you might be saying to herself, “Wow, I wish I could be a shlucha,” and wondering what it’s like. But everything you’ve said gives so much strength, because in the end, every woman really is a shlucha.

1:21:03 Speaker 2 Right.

1:21:03 Speaker 7 And I think it’s about treating life as a shlichus. Everything you’re already doing, all the people already around you—make them, so to speak, your mekurovim.

1:21:12 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:21:14 Speaker 7 And I think, above all, it’s about the challenges Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us. They’re actually the most valuable part of our journey, because they reveal strengths in us that otherwise would have stayed tucked away in the attic and never come to light. But I’ll hand the microphone back to you. Is there anything else you’d like to say in closing?

1:21:32 Speaker 2 I’ll tell you something. When I gave birth to the quadruplets, as I told you, it brought me a sense of calm. It brings a certain humility and calm: listen, you’re not in charge of anything. Really. All you can do is carry out the shlichus you’ve been given properly. And that applies to every woman in her own sphere, by the way. Shlichus doesn’t have to be glamorous and dazzling and at the end of the world and involve quadruplets. It doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t matter. This is what I was given; she was given something else. There are no comparisons. First of all, everyone has her own place. I really see it like a table with four legs: none is better than another, but each is in a different position. And all of us together are holding up the world.

1:22:11 Speaker 7 Wow.

1:22:12 Speaker 2 I tell the travelers this too: how much power we have. Every good thing a person does really affects the whole world. I tell them, for example, about Shifrah and Puah. That was really the whole thing with the quadruplets and all that. So I explained how we help one another after giving birth. They said to me, “But excuse me, if a woman took it upon herself to bring a child into the world, she should take responsibility for it. Why does someone else need to look after her?” I told her, “Because every child, every soul that comes into the world brings the Geulah closer. It’s about bringing all the souls into the world.” Every good thing you do—whether you go to Gaza for other people, or whatever your particular contribution is. Another woman might be an amazing kindergarten teacher who’s raising a wonderful generation. Everyone has an impact where they are, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu put each person exactly where they belong. You don’t necessarily have to see the biggest miracles or have some spectacular shlichus. It really can be in the most basic things. I think something very important—and I understood this again after the quadruplets—is doing things simply. Not getting overwhelmed, not making a big deal of everything. Just doing things without thinking, “Oh, how much did I sleep? Did I eat or not? What happened to me?” We do need to take care of ourselves. Take care of ourselves. I’m not saying to neglect ourselves. I’m also someone who loves life. I love good food, I love treating myself. Of course. I’m a happy person; I love being with people, I really love everything. I love this world—and the world was created for me, by the way. I really know how to enjoy it wholeheartedly, and enjoy a good conversation. But don’t get overwhelmed. Do things simply and pleasantly, and enjoy the journey. Don’t...

1:23:38 Speaker 7 You’re reminding me that with my first children, I’d wake up in the morning and calculate how much I’d slept. Half an hour, then I got up, then I was with the child for half an hour. Wow, altogether I got four and a half hours. There’s no way to start the day like that.

1:23:49 Speaker 2 Right.

1:23:49 Speaker 7 Now I get up, wash my face, put on some music, and off we go.

1:23:53 Speaker 2 Exactly. Put on some music, enjoy yourself, and just live. Keep moving forward; don’t get stuck.

1:24:01 Speaker 7 Live life to the fullest.

1:24:02 Speaker 2 Live life to the fullest, don’t get stuck, enjoy it, and that’s it.

1:24:07 Speaker 7 I think that...

1:24:07 Speaker 2 Stay connected.

1:24:09 Speaker 7 Yes.

1:24:09 Speaker 2 Yes, stay connected to the Rebbe. That’s something I really want to say. I think it’s an incredible gift. Today, in a minute, you can pull up a video of the Rebbe. That carries me through so many times. Just looking at a tzaddik, listening to the Rebbe, getting that drive from the Rebbe—and learning Chassidus, which is truly light and life. These are things that really lift the soul. So often I just want some little thought, a short Torah thought, something that lights up my heart. I honestly didn’t know I was like that. You know, when we’re girls, it’s somehow not cool enough.

1:24:42 Speaker 7 That’s part of it, yes. Wow, that’s so true. I’m listening to you, and it sounds so...

1:24:45 Speaker 2 I want to be honest. I didn’t even think it was—I didn’t even dare...

1:24:49 Speaker 7 That’s how kids are.

1:24:50 Speaker 2 Right. I didn’t even dare give myself permission to admit that it makes me feel good. It does make us feel good. We like it. I enjoy it...

1:24:58 Speaker 7 Come on, let’s not be embarrassed about it.

1:24:59 Speaker 2 Exactly. I enjoy it. So, little things... And don’t get stuck on “Did I manage to do this? Did I not manage to do that? I’m better at this; I’m not as good at that.” There are plenty of things I don’t do well enough, and someone else is stronger than I am at them. Just as you don’t compare one shlichus to another, or quadruplets to one child, don’t compare yourselves. This one davens, that one doesn’t; this one speaks lashon hara, that one doesn’t. Don’t look at who’s doing what.

1:25:21 Speaker 7 Exactly.

1:25:21 Speaker 2 Just do as much as you can, with joy and simplicity.

1:25:26 Speaker 7 Can we sum it up in a few words? On the one hand, keep doing things...

1:25:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:25:30 Speaker 7 Doing what’s right for you, but never stopping. And on the other hand, don’t forget to refuel ourselves...

1:25:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:25:35 Speaker 7 With the right fuel, so we have the strength to keep going.

1:25:37 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:25:38 Speaker 7 Wow, Fraidy, all that’s left for me to do is come visit you.

1:25:42 Speaker 2 We didn’t even get to one story about your quadruplets, you realize.

1:25:44 Speaker 7 Yes, yes. No, we...

1:25:45 Speaker 2 That’s not right.

1:25:45 Speaker 7 I’m waiting to tell you. It’s not...

1:25:46 Speaker 2 Yes, with Hashem’s help, if they have to work...

1:25:48 Speaker 7 No single story will be enough. We need the whole collection.

1:25:51 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:25:52 Speaker 7 Good.

1:25:52 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help.

1:25:53 Speaker 7 We’ll let you get back to the children.

1:25:54 Speaker 2 Chani, you’re amazing.

1:25:55 Speaker 7 Thank you. Look who’s talking.

1:25:56 Speaker 2 I really enjoyed talking with you, and thank you. And well done for what you do. Things like washing dishes while listening to a podcast that fills your soul...

1:26:05 Speaker 7 Exactly.

1:26:05 Speaker 2 I think those things are amazing. The ability to take something—there’s already a podcast out there in the world, so let there be a Chassidic podcast about shlichus, about this. These things are amazing. Really, I... And the online classes you give, all these things are...

1:26:18 Speaker 7 Oh, Fraidy, let’s stop there, okay?

1:26:20 Speaker 2 No, no, why not? I should have said it at the beginning. Anyone who’s stayed with us this far, well... yes.

1:26:25 Speaker 7 Thank you so much. Yes, we hope that anyone who’s stayed with us has also managed to do the dishes and laundry and all that...

1:26:29 Speaker 2 And even if you haven’t, you’re okay.

1:26:30 Speaker 7 Tell us how it went...

1:26:31 Speaker 2 You’re okay, sister. You’re okay.

1:26:33 Speaker 7 Yes. And leave a comment on the episode so more women can see it. If you enjoyed it, send it to a friend, send it to a cousin, send it to someone who could use some strength.

1:26:42 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:26:43 Speaker 7 And may you have an easy birth, Fraidy.

1:26:45 Speaker 2 A big amen to that.

1:26:46 Speaker 7 An easy birth, at the right time. A healthy baby and a healthy mother. One child—that’s easy for you.

1:26:50 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help.

1:26:51 Speaker 7 No.

1:26:51 Speaker 2 May the baby be healthy. Just healthy and whole, and...

1:26:54 Speaker 7 Okay, thank you.

1:26:55 Speaker 2 Good news.

1:26:55 Speaker 7 Thank you.