Category: Leah’s Blog

Leah’s blog     September 4 2015

So, zeh – hoo, as they say in Hebrew. This is it. Coming to an end of a whole year, I look into the hot blue never changing sky waiting for those clouds of Elul to hit. Soon we’ll be in Tishrei and a new year. As a people, we anticipate. As a person, well I just have a hard time waiting it out. The trees at this time of year have a grey thirsty dusty look to them, moving in the hot chamsin winds of the end of the summer. I have no doubt they share the same wish for rain and a new season, for wellsprings to burst forth, both physical and spiritual. It is not by coincidence that the world was created at the end of Elul. Here in Israel, you feel a newness about to open up like the budding of a flower, but in autumn. There is a passuk, “BaChodesh Cheedshoo maaseychem”- this is the time to review, refresh and renew.

Here in this place where heaven and earth meet, it is “lead time”. We have so much to pray for but also so much to do. If the posture seems like holding yourself in readiness, so classic a position before the days of awe, here we scurry in preparing for it. Real things don’t come ready made. In less than two weeks Shemitah ends and I am mobilizing for it, almost desperate. Years ago I learned to bake the round honey challahs of Rosh Hashana from an older much wiser woman. She was able to read me like a book as I paced around not being able to stand still for too long or even sit down much. I remember the look in her steady olive green eyes as she said as if to herself in a singsong “Savlanoot hee emunah. Savlanoot hee emunah.” (Patience means faith. Patience means faith) as she kneaded the dough. That was for me. Boy did I not know that the lightning bolt of the final redemption was not going to hit at any given moment. Pondering the urgency of the hour, so close to the chag, it seemed too much to wait for so long for the bread………

The world is turning in the natural course of things and life is running its course- We have a lot to pray for. We have a lot to do. The facts on the ground are more entrenched now. How I wish it would move faster!

Shabbat Shalom! Leah goldsmith

Leah’s blog   August 21 2015

At an important crossroads located in the middle buckle of the Bible belt that runs up and down the mountains of Israel, Tapuach Junction is named after the original township in ancient Israel’s heartlands. Many people travel on the roads that meet there to an hour distance of either Tel Aviv in the west, The Jordan Valley in the east, Jerusalem in the south or the bloc of communities where Itamar is located in Gav Hahar going north. It is so central yet not too known. It can also be a favorite spot for an ambitious terrorist to try and come to murder people as has been in the past and also this week another demon lurching with a knife was put out by the swift reaction of our amazing soldiers.

As a way of life we stand there at this crossing hitching a ride home in the wide space in the road. A hub of traffic can pass if you hit that hour, or sometimes you can feel like the only soul on earth. Yesterday our youngest daughter, Achishena was returning from her job at the occupational center for adults with autism in Jerusalem. She was almost home but not quite, standing in this spot waiting for a ride in. At the bus stop where the terrorist was neutralized, three reporters approached her and began an interview. “Aren’t you afraid to be standing here?” “How long have you lived in this area?” etc….. The answers came as quickly as a first responder. “This is the CENTER of Israel! I’ve lived here my whole life.” “This is home!” “Did you notice how little time it took for you to get here from your office/home?” “Aren’t YOU afraid to live Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or any place where a missile might hit you or a bus bomber may explode, etc…”….. The little dance between them didn’t last long. In a last attempt to get some kind of story, they asked her if she condemned the murder in the Arab village two weeks ago. “Oh, so first you want me to say I’m a scaredy cat Jew and now you want me to apologize for something I didn’t do!”. Boy did they pick the wrong person. We raise our kids to know and to know the answers. It was a good opportunity for a convergence of ideas there at that meeting place, but that came and went as fast as the speeding cars that passed by.

Israel as a macro is the focal point as it connects all worlds, Europe, Asia and Africa, the absolute key connecting junction of the world. There have been and will be attempts to terrorize us but we feel right at home. No, we are not afraid. Time is flying by as we must continue to pave the way for the traffic of our brothers coming home, over the old roads our fathers set up here as an everlasting inheritance. As east meets west, the world is shrinking and coming closer to the core, the source of blessing, Israel. There is much to do. It’s moving faster now and soon we’ll all be home!

Shabbat Shalom, Leah Goldsmith

Leah’s blog – August 15^th 2015

I was talking to our son-in law, Alex at our 30 year anniversary of moving to Israel this week.

“Looking back”, I said to him, as our grandchildren were swinging on the swing between us under the shade of the trees we planted years ago , “the thing that comes to mind is our parents, our family, how we started, how we’ve grown.” He smiled as he too became part of that story, the story of our life here in the heart of Israel. Every generation has a challenge and as I spoke with him I thought about the family unit as an ideal in itself today, putting aside all other tasks we are called to do. Baruch Hashem for our families!

When we made Aliyah, our parents let us go and do what we did, trusting totally, sympathizing with our gut sense that was not always logical. When they came to visit in the early pioneering days, they, like us had the same feeling in their bones, one of intuition and no foreboding of things if on a global level things were not being approved. They knew otherwise, they knew the right way and we took it. The gusto we had as we plowed forward against the odds was returned to us not with skepticism but relating to us and our lives here in a most natural way as we even shared all the monotonous details of redemption coming in dribs and drabs (kimma kimma) and no earth shattering electric shock sensation. They took the bitter with the sweet of life in the land of milk and honey where we weren’t promised a rose garden but planted one. Our gratification was theirs as we transitioned on from Sheeabood leGeula (from the days of Holocaust into the rebirth of return to Zion). If Hashem is doing it anyway, why not do it for Him!

The generations continue on and we face new/old challenges. The greatest gift we received is what we pass on, the torch of light in a dark, very dark world. Even today as technology boasts triumphant victory for making knowledge more available the world remains for the most part, ignorant of the most basic tenants of Tikkun Olam. The challenges ahead leave no room for apologies or for explaining ourselves but illuminating, enlightening and not being afraid to be who we are, where we are at this time as precisely on time as Hashem wants it. And proudly so! You know what they say, “He who prepared for Shabbat will enjoy Shabbat.” Did you get the candles ready? The food? The linens, the tablecloth, your Shabbat clothes, all the little salads that adorn the table? How will Israel be ready for the final days if we don’t make it happen?

There is no better ambience than sitting with your family on Shabbat. Well, maybe there is- Shabbat right here- In Israel, in the heart of Israel. Do come and join us!

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh tov!

Leah Goldsmith

Erev Tisha B’Av 2015. I am making delicious cupcakes with chocolate icing and pink sprinkles for our granddaughter’s 2^nd Birthday party tonight after our Shabbat feast. As I pile the Hello Kitty plates and little tea service into a corner and take out balloons I can see through our closed window (the air conditioner is on) a lot of smoke and when there’s smoke, there’s fire. How is it that our enemies know like a clock the most apropos time to remind us to remember! “Remember your Temple twice burnt! Remember you were banished from here! The world doesn’t want you (t)here now either!” These two thousand years were not just an exile from our homeland but from our soul. On Tisha B’Av also Yosef HaTzaddik was sold and lived as a slave. We have lived so many years in exile, we are slaves.

Well, most of us- not all of us. Recently a friend of mine asked me how can it be that she can reach the highest cloud nine, seventh heaven and then fall rock bottom, flat on her face. Why can’t she just have a steady normal existence? I told her about a Torah I heard once that life is like an electrocardiogram monitor- when the line moves up and down it’s a sign of life, when you see a straight flat line – you are in Davy Jones locker, finished! Hold on, the roller coaster ride intensifies as now current events will have a surprise at every turn. We are up and down at the same time now and we need to hold on tight.

It is interesting how our darkest days are really the brightest, most glaring days of summer. Here in Israel, there is never even a cloud in the sky! It is a time we lament, grieve, sweat, and grumble. People are tired. Also, on this day every year I light a yartzeit candle for my grandmother Alvina who passed away on Erev Tisha B’Av. Years ago in that Summer of 1985 when I told her we were moving to Israel she looked at me with that orange flare she had in her eye and said “You will have your way! And you know your own mind!” How happy she must be to know that a little great great granddaughter was born on this date in Israel, in the Land of the living! Would she have dreamt as she was banished from her home in Cologne Germany that a new rising generation had resettled in those old places we pray for every Tisha B’Av!

Do Jewish people really pray to rebuild the Temple?

These are crazy times. In Talmudic times a sage said “I have seen an upside down world, those above are below and those below are above!” (Baba Batra 10B Pesachim 50A). In Sanhedrin 97A it says “In the time before Mashiach truth will be hidden”.

When we break our fast we are already not baying at the moon but making a blessing over it. Mashiach was born right on Tisha B’Av! As we pray for Hashem to rectify this upside down world, to remedy the lies, the intent to keep His people as slaves, we pray to shine out His light to the world through Israel as a nation in her Land. We come closer to it every year, every moment, now.

As I look into the rim of the horizon I can see beyond the smoke, the houses decorating the mountains of the heart of Israel. In just a few days we will move over to a new time of preparation for singing Halleluya and Hoshana!

Shabbat Shalom! Leah Goldsmith

In these transition days on the Jewish calendar, a time between leaving Egypt (Pesach) and receiving the Torah (Shavuot) we have yet another opportunity for introspection and time to internalize what it means to ME personally and US a nation, to shake off the shackles of slavery controlling our minds and prepare to receive great wisdom that can only be given to a free person, free to think for himself.

The buck didn’t stop at Har Sinai, it wasn’t like blowing the candles out on the birthday cake and making a wish, but the journey of self and nationwide introspection continued as we followed Hashem through the desert in “a Land unsown” until we reached the destined place He chose for us. Am Yisrael still had much uncertainty as to what Eretz Yisrael, the target destination was to be, much like the original template of Avraham Avinu who went to a place he knew little about. Hashem said “I WILL show you.”

Hashem gives us everything we need, not everything we want. It’s what Avraham needed to do then and he was faced with many trials, some of them life threatening, some of them a test in faith. After leaving Egypt we wanted the fish and onions of our cozy days there. We had a hard time transitioning. We came to Israel and had to plow, fight and do things no slave would ever do, like build homes for OURSELVES. It was a free road but it wasn’t easy. Our early pioneers that felt the wave and stirring of redemption just in the last millennium came to malaria infested swamps, of fatal attacks, of starvation in the Promised Land.

Now comes an element into the will of Hashem for what He has planned and our own will- when we ASK Hashem for what we want- because everybody knows that when we stop wanting, we stop living. Here’s the thing, there’s nothing wrong with wanting, but we have to ask Hashem for guidance in asking for the right thing. That’s why we have times like these when Hashem invites us to ask for the right thing- to leave the exile state of mind. It is puzzling to me as we embark on another speaking tour and I reflect on how a large segment of the Jewish community still backs a government who is demanding Israel give up her heart – as turmoil, death and violence surround her- is on her gates (!) yet, the platform is- commit suicide- give up your strategic high central places, give up your inheritance, the place of your fathers, give it up, make her waistline 8 miles wide- and poof- blow out the candles, world- then there will be peace! Where is their freedom of thought?

Here on the ground, the fields and hills are turning from green to gold as the sun warms us and prepares us for Shavuot. The ambience is one of a people so in love with and connected to their Land. It isn’t perfect yet, but that’s what Tikkun Olam is all about- it’s about being free to take the responsibility to ACT, and the rest is in Hashem’s hands.

Shabbat shalom!

Leah’s Blog April 16 2015

There are years that Holocaust Memorial Day falls exactly on my birthday. Not this year, but I wonder, looking back, if this was any consolation to my parents who had each lived as small children in thriving regions of Europe, one in Germany, one in Poland- places full of people, of life, of schools filled with children, libraries, ballet halls, theatres  synagogues and shops. It all came to ash, a black and white movie with just a yellow star, not for warmth of color, but a jaundiced yellow, the emblem of someone headed for death. “No Jews allowed!” signs were put everywhere, on all things familiar.

The homey place of my father’s parents, and grandparents and their great grandparents who lived there for ages dealing in livestock and cattle (and they even owned a general store) became foreign and cruel, cold and evil. My father had a sister, the aunt I never knew who had the “luck” of being a golden haired blonde blue eyed beauty. This didn’t help her or any of their ten siblings, parents, grandparents and most of their Jewish community in the town Nisko Poland located near an industrial city, Stolla VeVolla. They were all rounded up like the sheep they sold there and murdered.

My father was saved by a family of righteous gentiles, (the mother of the family is still alive today and is 106 years old.) This family risked their lives to save him as the Nazis would make their rounds searching for a hint of a surviving Jew anywhere- they wanted Europe Judenrein- clean of Jews and they meant it.

After the war the Jews that survived where ever they were had no place to go. England, the mother of culture and etiquette refused for Jews to settle in Israel, barring their entry and if caught were restrained, or incarcerated, in many cases put to death. Jews that returned to their properties found other people living there. It seemed hopeless.  But something happened only a few years later. Something began to manifest on the soil of the Promised Land. Israel, a land herself widowed for many years, became as a bride and was reborn! Not long after becoming a state, Israel was attacked by new enemies but the smell of gunpowder this time was of our own army in our own Land.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. Next week we will celebrate Independence Day.

There are free democratic countries today whose government platforms demand “No Jews Allowed” signs be placed on the heart of Israel. All places familiar to us from the portion of the week , First and Temple periods, they want Judenrein. Chevron Shilo Itamar and much of Jerusalem has been designated for a JEWISH BUILDING FREEZE. They reach out an arm in friendship not to the Jews that live here but to literal terror organizations. They would like history to repeat itself. But we know better. As the yellow sun warms us here in Israel, polychrome glass and silver skyscrapers adorn our city streets, tangerines, peaches and apricots invite you to come and taste. Behold the grapevine sprouting out of the rock!

The words “Never Again” were engrained in me from the day I was born.

Here, where prophecy meets reality I feel safe and know the promised kept.

Chazak VeAmatz! Shabbat Shalom! Leah goldsmith