Keep Abraham Alive in Every Chapter of Your Life

[I wrote this blog in 2014. How odd that it never uploaded, but popped onto my screen today, 18 years since Sarah Blaustein and Esther Elvan were killed in a terror attack. This was the event that caused me to found Raise Your Spirits Theater. I am uploading it now, and I hope you'll read it on Parshat Vayeishev.]
Parshat Vayeishev. This week's Torah chapter is where we began. This is our Raise Your Spirits theatre story. This is our foundation. "Way way back many centuries ago..." This is where we began reaching out to Am Yisrael with the stories of our heritage and our people when I first founded Raise Your Spirits.
(http://raiseyourspiritstheatre.blogspot.co.il/2014/04/thanks-to-mickey-rooney-for-his.html)

You might also notice that this is the first parsha in the series thus far that does not mention our patriarch Avraham.

Until now, the promise that "filled Avraham's heart with hope" has been conferred to our patriarch, to Yitzchak Avinu and to Yaakov Avinu. When Yaakov speaks to Hashem, he calls him the "G-d of my father Avraham and G-d of my father Yitzchak."

In Vayeishev, we do not hear Hashem's voice. And we do not hear or feel the voice of Avraham. Our father Avraham loved and reached out to everyone he met."Shalom" was probably on Avraham's lips all the time, as he was ready to greet each person and bring him under the wings of Hashem.

Our twelve tribal ancestors indeed became great illustrious men, but in this week'sparsha, we see they are lacking Avraham. And they are lacking Avraham's"Shalom."

We all know that "Shalom" is not just HIYA. It is wholeness. It is peace. 

Without "Shalom", none of us is complete. There is a vacuum inside of us, and because the universe hates a vacuum, instead of filling with goodness, it fills with all kinds of negatives. 

Right, Avraham Avital Macales
& left, faithful servant Eliezer
Sharon Dobuler Katz

We learn in this week's parsha that Yosef's brother's hated him and were so jealous of him that they couldn't even speak to him peaceably. "V'lo yachlu dabru l'shalom."

In fact even when they speak about him to their father, they cannot mention his name, "Is it your son's tunic or not?"

How could this exemplary family have deteriorated to such an extent that the upstanding brothers were ready to condemn and hate Yosef so deeply? How could they not even be able to communicate with him in a civilized manner? 

Perhaps the answer is that Avraham was missing.

The unconditional acceptance, the way Avraham ran TO others to welcome them into his home. Avraham always took steps l'shalom.

But the brothers had hardened their heart, they couldn't find one good thing about Yosef (not even that he walked 100 km just to see how they were), and they couldn't regard him with peace.

We who know and love Avraham so deeply, we who B"H have had the zechut to feel as close to him as his disciples must always make sure to follow his ways.

We must interject AVRAHAM in every aspect of life. That means in all aspects of life, in all relationships, we must bring in the Avraham, the shalom, the smile and the kindness. And whenever we see someone or speak of somenoe, we should call him by name. You will see how much that will mean to him and how it makes him light up like the stars. (In fact, Hashem calls every star by name...but that's a different story....)

Shabbat shalom and love to you all.

Keep the Avraham message burning. :-)

9-11 and Raise Your Spirits

9-11.
That's the catchy term the world uses. 9-11 and everyone knows what each person is referring to.
The Arab terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in the United States, plus two other attempted sites.

The towers came down in death and destruction, and smoke and steel, and horror and loved-ones-lost.
In Israel where I live, we had been living our own mini-9-11s every day. A shooting here, a suicide bomber there (the most infamous being the Sbarro bombing).
It was a beyond-frightening time for all - so scary that many folks would have just stayed locked up in their homes, rather than face the outside world.
But we women of Raise Your Spirits were determined to go on with life. And, live life ourselves and with our friends and families despite the hells around us.

So on 9-11, we went on! The show went on! Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
We had debates and even borderline- fights with those who disagreed, but we knew we had to go on. If we stopped living life at every terror attack, we'd still be home under the covers.
In addition to that, the WORLD had now just joined the people of Israel in what had been our private trauma.
We needed to be together with others, and we needed to believe that life would go on, that the earth would keep turning.

So after complex discussions, we sent cast members to synagogues around Gush Etzion, collected prayer books and handed them out to our audience.
We turned our performance into a giant prayer rally - 450 women praying together in complete faith. Our performers prayed behind the curtain and the audience in their theatre seats.
And then the show went on - one our best shows ever. The audience weeped and they laughed, and they were able to put the evil world out of their hearts and minds for one hour, as they traveled with us through the stage version of "a silly-sad-serious-shiny" life of Joseph and his brothers. 

And there we stood on 9-11, Raise Your Spirits and our sisters, united, believing, supportive, loving - getting through the worst day the world has known TOGETHER as a family of Jewish women.
[http://raiseyourspiritstheatre.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/doing-our-job-again-our-rys-emergency.html]

May Hashem bless the world and finally soon destroy evil from our midst.

Avraham's Strength to "Go Out"

While learning this week’s Parsha Ki Teitzei, I opened Orchard of Delight by Rabbi Avraham Arieh Trugman, and what did I find? You guessed it. Rabbi Trugman used our patriarch Avraham to help teach the topic, “Going Out to War on a Personal Level”.

Rabbi Trugman said that because Ki Teitzei comes out so close to the High Holy Days, we can look at the words about going out to war against our enemy, and think of them in reference to our soul and inner force.

He asked, “Where does the Jew find the strength to go out into the world and fulfill the injunction to be a ‘light unto the nations’ (Isaiah 42:6)? As we learn in Bereishit, the actions of our forefathers engraved this lesson on our collective consciousness.”

“Abraham consistently found the strength to follow G-d, no matter what stumbling blocs were placed before him. He left his country and family to venture forth into the unknown, wherever G-d directed him.”

“After arriving in the Land of Canaan, famine forced him to leave for Egypt, but he returned wealthier than before.”

“…Abraham’s devotion paved the way for Israel to leave Egypt in the middle of the night, to follow G-d into the desert and the great unknown and ultimately to enter the Land of Israel as a strong nation.”

Rabbi Trugman continued, “When Abraham complained to G-d that he had no children to continue his work G-d ‘took him outside’ where he showed him the stars and promised him that his progeny would be as numerous as the stars.”

He explained, “The Hebrew word for took (hotzi) has the same root as the name of our portion (teitzei). As we learned in Lech Lecha, G-d taught Abraham that he needed to go outside of his nature, to go above the stars…This power is the inheritance of every Jew – but each and every Jew must work hard to bring that potential to fruition in his own life.”

Avaham - An Example for All

You know how when you’re thinking of buying a certain item, suddenly, you notice that item everywhere. You never noticed it before, but now that you’ve got your mind on it, it seems to be everywhere.

Well, lehavdil, that’s how it seems to be with our patriarch Avraham.

Now that we’re in the midst of rehearsals for our new show, COUNT THE STARS – The Journey of Avraham and Sara - everything I learn, every daily prayer, every spiritual experience lately seems to deal with Avraham. So, I guess it won’t be a surprise when I tell you that I was excited to learn Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) today and find our father Avraham used as an example to explain Chapter 1 Mishnah 15.

“Shammai said: Make Torah study a regular habit, say little and do much, and receive every person cheerfully.”

The commentators on this Mishna gave Avraham as their example, they explain that when the travelers (angels) came to Avraham’s tent, he told them, “And I will bring a piece of bread…” (Bereishit 18:5), and then he proceeded to bring “butter and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and placed it before them.” (18:8)

And about the phrase…“receive every person cheerfully…” Well, no one had a kinder more welcoming demeanor than Avraham Avinu. One of the strongest reasons for his success in “creating souls” (bringing people under the wings of Hashem) was his cheerful countenance, the happy warm way he greeted each person and the loving way in which he gave over his teachings.

Let us all take yet another lesson from our father Avraham, and shavua tov to all.

Sbarro's 13 Years Later

It was August 9, 2001. We had rehearsal that night. We had rehearsal most nights of the summer of 2001. There was too much terror and fear around us. The alternative to coming to rehearsal was to sit home under the blankets and cry. So, if someone wanted to cry, she could do it on her friend’s shoulder, then say some tehillim and get up on stage.

I had founded Raise Your Spirits two months before in order to raise spirits, to win our private war against the terror around us, after my next-door-neighbor Esther Elvan was murdered along with my friend Sarah Blaustein, HY”D. But the list of murdered Jews that summer was horrifically long.

So, on August 9, everyone showed up, hugged, and told one another where they were when the Sbarro’s bomb went off. One of our narrators, Miriam, a local Bnei Akiva head was very worried and beyond upset. One of her Bnei Akiva counselors, Malki Roth, was missing. Miriam had called a meeting of her counselors and Malki didn’t show up.

At the popular eaterie, Sbarro’s on the corner of King George and Rechov Yaffo, a suicide-homicide bomber had murdered 15 people - fathers, mothers, children. It was a horrible vicious attack, and we were all still reeling from the catastrophe.

Then, as today, in this horrible incident, the Hamas terror organization was responsible for the blood-shed.

Miriam found out that Malki Roth, HY"D, was among the murder victims in Sbarro’s. We were all devastated beyond words, beyond tears, beyond heartbreak. We said tehillim. Our knees shook. We continued on. A Jew has no choice but to continue on.

That was 13 years ago. Raise Your Spirits went on stage in JOSEPH and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to bring the women of Efrat/Gush Etzion together in a positive uplifting project, to give women of Israel a reason to cry in the darkness and then sing about the eternity of Israel.

Throughout the past 13 years, we’ve performed in seven different productions for 50,000 women. The situation in the country has fluctuated, sometimes from bad to worse. Today, we are faced with Hamas again (although all sorts of terror groups have raised their heads continually).
Today as war rages in the south, as sirens blare in different parts of the country every day, we are rehearsing again, aiming to raise our spirits with a positive uplifting activity – the production of COUNT THE STARS – The Journey of Abraham and Sara.

May Hashem bless the women of Raise Your Spirits and the entire nation. One day soon, we pray the music we sing will be filled with pure joy.
(Photo from Keren Malki)