It’s Tisha B’Av, our holiday of communal mourning. There’s a saying in the world of professional Jewish educators, “When it comes to Jewish identity, there’s no business like Shoah business.” There is nothing like the Holocaust to engender a sense of Jewish identity.

Stinging and tragic though that statement may be, I myself am a walking testimony to its truth. A mildly-affiliated, wildly-assimilated American teen, I had zero interest in the banal goings-on of my local synagogue. The only thing about Judaism that was even remotely interesting to me was the Holocaust.

Now I wish I could say that I got turned-on to Judaism because of some joyful Shabbat song or a bite of a really finely done potato-kugel; but it wasn’t. The thing that first pulled me in was the loss of my ancestors and this sudden vast sense of history, gravitas, and responsibility towards them. My doorway in came through shared mourning, shared grief. Because something happens when we mourn together. When we weep together, we are woven into family.

When we share mourning, we share housing. When we mourn together we become mishpacha. 

This House of Israel is in mourning.
We sit upon the floor and weep
the mirrors are black,
our robes are slashed,
and leather-less our feet. 

Our clan is clad in ash and sack
a dirge between our bones
a wail of anguish unabated
rises from this home. 

The pittance of admission here
is expression of lament
—authentic, rasp and risen
mangled and intense.

Here the graves are multiple
and flanked with stacking stones
which could, perhaps, be launched at enemies
but sit instead in memory of what is gone. 

Our weaponry is our weeping;
our protection is our prayer
our strength is born when we gather to mourn
made siblings by shared despair. 

And in lamentation lies our comfort
and in this meeting, our home is built
founded firm on the raw resilience
of the families of the killed.

But hear this, our love is
mightier than our anger!
For we are a nation of mothers
and fathers and priests.

We build houses out of war-stones
and change cemeteries into sanctuaries
with our songs of hope. 

A knock upon the lintel lets in the shiva guests.
God shuffles in amongst them
and bends to offer His condolences. 

And in the madness of the mourning
and the anguish so immense
a dwelling is suddenly erected
– regal & resplendent. 

And a sacred space is made
amidst the family who endures
such loss and grief.

And our household stands strong
amidst the weeping throng
and God’s Presence refuses to leave. 

Our household stands strong amidst the weeping throng
and God’s Presence refuses to leave.

There’s something I’ve been wanting. Badly. For a long time. One of those deep life-long-pining kind of wants. Sorry, not going to share what it is here in the blogosphere. Not yet, at least. Not until I get it firm in my grip.

But suffice it to say, it’s shiny and grand and dream-worthy. Oh, and another thing…it’s entirely out of my reach. Or at least, that’s what I believed. Until a few weeks back. When suddenly the universe got a whole lot friendlier and the Power of Prayer once again proved herself to be ‘Limitations’ most formidable enemy.

You see, I live in the heart of Jerusalem…just down the street from this quirky little cemetery. Quirky because you would just never expect to happen upon a graveyard at the foot of the Supreme Court just catty-corner to the Knesset. But there it is, flanked by the odoriferous Gan Sacher dog park and a bird observatory.

But even more remarkable is that this unassuming cemetery houses a tzadik. And what a tzadik! – The Zviller Rebbe.

The story goes that circa 2008 this Rebbe came to one of his descendants in a dream and told her that if people come pray at his grave then he will give them heavenly assistance in the speedy answering of their prayers. So said relative spread the good word. Prayerful people showed up to see what this newcomer on the kivrei-tzadik-circuit had going and sure enough the miracle stories started accumulating.

Since then the grave-site has become a small Disney Land for prayer enthusiasts. And you’re about to see why.



But first, back to me and my seemingly unattainable dream.

There I was doing my morning Cardio-and-Kvetch walk through Gan Sacher park with a friend. We spent an hour brainstorming ways for me to manifest my wishful reality. As we parted she said in passing, “Hey, it’s Monday. Why don’t you go pray by thetzadik in the park?”

But of course! Why should it be that I have a laundry list to my knees of action items for the manifestation of this reality but prayer was nowhere on the to-do list?

And so I put prayer as my primary Must-Do. I footed up the hill, past the Knesset, the birds, the Supreme Court and into the cemetery. Expecting to see, well, a cemetery.

But au contraire.

And here was where the Disney Land vibe came in. It felt like I had stepped through the turn-style and was suddenly off on Mr. Toads Wild Prayer Ride.

You see, upon arrival I was greeted by a banquet of treats laid out on a table. Ice-cold juice and cherries, rugalach and honey cake, raisins & dates. Wistful prayer-goers milled around noshing happily while reading the walls.

Yes, reading the walls. For the decor here was wallpaper-made-of-miracles. The walls were literally plastered with the wild and wonderful scribblings of sacred testimony. Hundreds of *ThaNks and pRaiSe* proclamations that Yes G!d is great and praying by the Zviller had been the key to the answering of their prayers.

I jumped right in to the party; started noshing and blessing and amen-ing and jiving with the scene. Somewhere someone blew a shofar. The birds sang, the dogs barked, the Supreme Court meted out justice. A helicopter ascended from the Knesset landing pad. The promise of answered prayers was palpable.

Now, as a gal who has gone beseechingly to my share of gravesides I will tell you what I love most about this one. This Wild Prayer Ride has its own set of rules. The Zviller has a unique prescription for how to make the prayer-machine move.

They were laid out for me by the picturesque Sephardi safta poised at the entrance. She instructed me lavishly, waving her Book of Tehillim in her left hand with her right palm outstretched for coins.



Here’s the prescription:

1. First, come on a Monday or Thursday. Commit to the full cycle of 3 – Mon/Thrs/Mon or Thrs/Mon/Thrs. Pick ONE issue you want to pray for. Focus in. Chose your one most essential hope.
2. Partake of the feast upon entry. Say blessings over each type of treat. Loudly. Receive everyone’s hearty Amens. Do the same for them. Read with gusto the after-blessing printed out in massive lettering above the food. Exchange some more Amens.
3. Thoroughly take in the testimonies covering the walls. These are real life reminders that “Yes this will work!” This is the psychic code for convincing your unconscious to open up to the reality-warping power of Positive Belief. — Feel the tzadik-juice flow and the sugar-high kick in.
4. As you approach the grave itself locate the specially designed pamphlet of prayers. It contains a mixed bouquet of Psalms plus the specific Tehillim that spell out the letters of the Rebbe’s name. Read fervently and in its entirety. (Takes about 40 minutes depending on your Psalm-speed.)
5. Take a rock from one of the well stocked rock-buckets near the grave. Hold it in your left hand. Place that left hand on the grave itself and pray – focused and ferocious – for your singular desired result. Plant the rock on the grave before shuffling backwards and away.
6. Light a candle. Tea-lights and matches are generously provided. Add yours to the shimmering dozens already lit up by previous supplicants. Keep up your prayer. Believe it will simply and naturally become a reality. Pray and repeat, pray and repeat.
7. Seal the deal with tzedaka. Chose your adventure – the pushkie at the graveside, or the eager palms of schnorers awaiting you at the exit.
8. Commit to returning after your prayer has been answered to throw your own celebration party; replete with delectables to be blessed. You WILL bring your own carefully written up testimony of your miracle story to add to the hundreds already lining the walls. Be as elaborate as possible in advertising your miracle. Frame it. Provide photos, memorabilia, more cookies. Feed that positivity back in to the space.

Halleluyah for instructions! I enthusiastically followed the prescribed steps with a bone-deep  belief that yes, this fairy dust, this prayery dust, will work.

An hour later I got off the ride and stumbled out into the street. Slightly reeling, the way you feel when you step out of a movie theater back into the light of day.

But this time I allowed myself to believe that it was a new day. That something essential in the fabric of reality had indeed changed.

And

And

And

What do you think?

Yup.

Better believe it, dear reader.

For sure enough…I am happy to share…

I received an email

— the VERY NEXT DAY.

An unexpected email. A shocking and delightful and dumbfounding email.

An email informing me that my prayed-for-thing would very likely and in the not too distant future be granted, most grandly, most graciously.

“Nuh-uh!”

I squealed.

I flung around my limbs. I grinned and gasped and kicked like a kid.

“No way!”

“Yes way!”

“Yah-way!!!!”

Went back for my next two prayer days. That final visit I did take a cake of appreciation. Even found out that that the Zviller’s yahrzeit is the same day as my birthday. Ahh, sweet destiny.

Though it will still be some time before this new newly granted gift reality will come to the ground, I  think it is safe to say it is on the way. Poo poo poo, blee ayin harah and an enormous thank you to the authors of that email (you know who you are)!

As an appreciation of my thanks I want to offer up to return for another 3 day stint as a shaliyach – a messenger – for YOUR prayers.

So, nu, what do you want me to pray for for you!?!?

It would be my honor to beseech for you at this auspicious time & place!

What to do:

– SEND me your name and 1 thing to pray for. Preferably your Hebrew name and the Hebrew name of your mother. Either post it below or send me a private email at: chaya@shalevcenter.org. My 1 thing will be the answering of this collection of prayers.

– SHARE this story and commit to sharing YOUR story when that prayer comes to full manifestation!

– TZEDAKA. I’ll give at the grave but you also give in honor that your prayer be answered  via the heavenly assist of the Zviller Rebbe. The Tzadik of Gan Sacher!

– BELIEVE that it can be and ACT on that belief. If you want to lose 50 pounds go ahead and buy those size 6 pants. Go buy the baby carriage if what you want is a baby. I know it feels risky. Like you might get let-down if you take that leap. But you have to believe if you hope to receive!

*

May all of our highest wishes be answered for the best. May they be answered fast, fantastic and as a dramatic testimony to the truth that prayer works, G!d is great and anything is possible with the elbow grease of a helpful tzadik and our sweet Belief!

Meet Vivian. An otherwise sane, sometimes even saintly, woman. A wise & wonderful woman. A woman like you and me. And yet, a woman who is unwittingly wreaking the worst kind of havoc in her relationship. 

You see, Vivian is a tragically obsessive Should’er. Shoulding all over her partner. All over her marriage. All over herself. And she really shouldn’t. Because she needn’t. There is another way of being. And it’s easy. Except for when it isn’t. But that shouldn’t keep her from stretching for it, now should it?

*

Six months ago Vivian and her man Adam walked in to a Couple’s Seminar that my husband Hillel and I were leading. They both had a most serious case of “Shoulditis”. Shoulditis is a highly contagious disorder, mind you. It started with Vivian but quickly spread to Adam…and beyond.

They reeked of it. Vivian’s first words: “Oh, Adam, you really should have gotten us here earlier.  All the comfortable chairs are taken.” Adam deftly deflected Vivian’s should-shot onto us: “Yeah, for the money were paying for this seminar, they shouldprovide more comfortable seating.” And with that I too caught  the bug, “Hillel, youshould’ve brought down those 2 comfy chairs from the 3rd floor.” Hillel, duly should-struck, rushes upstairs and returns with the chairs, amply covered with Shouldy sweat.

Luckily, one of the first tasks we have the couples do in the seminar is a swift DeShoulding Exercise. It looked like this:

Step 1) Getting It Out: Vivian and Adam are posed seated back-to-back, leaning up against each other. Each is given a piece of paper. They are instructed to write out all of the SHOULDS they are feeling. To just let it all spill out on the page. Vivian is pouring them out, and requests more paper. Adam, exasperated, scribbles out emphatically, “She shouldn’t be so demanding!” The Should-slinging is in full force.

Every possible Should is articulated. And when the couples have depleted all those Shoulds we ask them to write out another 5. And another 5. To literally – and literarily – flush them all out in a gush of words.  The goal – to be cathartic, cleansing and thorough.

Step 2) Tracing Back the Roots:  The couples are next asked to turn their chairs so that they are both looking forward in the same direction; gazing not at each other but at a shared horizon.

We then set about putting those Shoulds to good use. For every Should actually offers up immense fertilizer for self-awareness and growth. You see, each Should has deep roots in an important inner truth. Each Should erupts out of a crucial buried FEELING.

We hand out red pens and instruct the couples to write out in the space next to the Should the deeper feelings that prompted it.

Vivian ponders her first one, “Adam should’ve gotten us here early so I could have been more comfortable.” She closed her eyes and felt into it. A few quiet moments passed. Finally, with a startled look of revelation, Vivian’s eyes popped open and she scribbled out:  “Feeling: When we walked in I felt a wave of worry and fear…I felt scared that I was  going to be uncomfortable doing this couple’s work and wanted Adam to put me at ease – symbolized by his getting me a comfortable chair.”

Walla, she had hit the psychological bulls-eye! Who knew that a little guided introspection would turn this once-kvetchy woman into a Freudian protégé.

It was an enlightening reframe for her. Instead of projecting her frustrations onto her partner and expecting him to fix them, she simply rooted into her self. She found there a remarkable treasure trove – her feelings.

She discovered that she was scared. Scared of confronting herself. Scared of doing the work on her relationship. But, now, instead of the encounter with self being the scary beast she feared it would be, she felt thrilled. The encounter wasn’t scary at all. In fact, it was real and precious and profound. It didn’t feel like a burden, it felt like a relief.

With eagerness, she dove in to her next Should, keen to see what it would reveal. And sure enough, it  traced back to another crucial submerged truth within her. “Adam should give me more compliments” turned in to “I feel self-conscious and ashamed of how I look.”

An awe-struck Vivian realized how often she misses out on her own experience by unconsciously projecting onto poor Adam. Which is a bummer for Adam. But it was also a bummer for her. Because each detour into Should-ville was a tragically missed opportunity for her to meet her self. And, most importantly, to meet her own needs.

Step 3) Releasing Partners:  With their red-market sheets and a new sense of self-awareness, the couples make the final turn, shifting their chairs to face each other; moving from a place of back-to-back projections to a place of face-to-face connection.

Here they take turns rephrasing each Should with a new (& improved) formula.

The formula of release: Instead of “You should x”…insert “You are not responsible for x.”

Instead of Vivian’s “He should compliment me & make me feel confident about my looks,” She declared to Adam, “You are not responsible for complimenting me and making me feel confident about my looks.”

Next formula: Instead of “You should x” insert “I release you from x”.

Vivian continued, “I release you from the responsibility of complimenting me and making me feel better about my looks.”

Remarkably, when Vivian declared this to Adam it was like he had stepped into a warm bath. Like someone had handed him a purring kitty. His face softened. His entire body relaxed. The release was remarkable. He smiled. He sighed. He laughed out loud.

Step 4) Taking Responsibility:

The formula of taking responsibility: Instead of “You should x”, insert “I SHOULD X”. Own that once-onerous Should. It’s really yours, after all.

Then share that empowered affirmation with your partner.

Vivian took to this with surprising exuberance. She declared an enthused “Yeah, I should give myself compliments! I’m awesome!”

Step 5) Soak in the Benefits:

By the time Vivian was done with claiming responsibility for her Should Adam could barely contain himself. He burst into his own spontaneous combustion of a compliment, “Oh my gosh, you are so gorgeous!”

And that, my friends, was the grand finale we were all waiting for. ‘Cuz here’s the kicker. The paradoxical prize is that the moment we stop Shoulding on our partners, we rake in the very rewards we were trying so desperately to reap.

When we hoist the responsibility off of their shoulders and onto our own, then nine times out of ten, our partners are all too eager to join in helping us shoulder it.

Suddenly the responses you have been pulling teeth for for ages are given freely, dotingly.

Where once was the stench of a Should suddenly there is the scent of love in the air.

Presto. The magic formula of getting everything you want in your relationship: Give up on ever getting it from them and go about giving it to yourself. Your partner will very often eagerly follow suit. And if they don’t, well you yourself are already committed to providing it instead.

Step 6 – for you readers) Do the Work NOW

My dear friends in the digital era, you’ve read about Vivian on your screen, now bring it down into your own life. Take the next 3 minutes to do this piece of work yourself.

Write out your own chart. This is your chance to track down your feelings, take some responsibility for your needs and share it with your partner. Great relationships don’t come pre-packaged at Target. you have to work for them. Daily.

And while you’re at it, by all means, RUN to sign up for our Face-to-Face Couple’s Seminar. It’s based on the best of psychological-insight-meets-Kabbalistic-principles. = You can even Skype in from the farthest reaches of the universe. I promise it will knock your socks off and bring you untold joy, fulfillment and relational bliss.

After all, you really Should.


*

Here is how to do the work yourself. When you finish it share your process around this with your partner. Use these formulas to release them and claim your own empowered responsibility.

Write out:

1. The Should: (exp. He should not spend so much time on the computer.)

2. The Feeling Beneath: (exp. I feel shaky & overwhelmed by all of the details and demands of our life.)

3. Taking responsibility for the should: (exp. I should not spend so much time on the computer.)

4. Taking responsibility for the feeling:  (exp. I will take responsibility for my feeling of overwhelm by getting cleaning help/venting with friends.)

To share with your partner:

Formulas of Release: It is not your responsibility to x (exp. Spend less time on the computer and help me feel less overwhelmed by life.)

I release you from the responsibility of x

Formula of Responsibility: I take responsibility to x (exp. Spend less time on the computer and get myself cleaning help/support from friends.)

Best of luck yall!!

It’s Israeli Independence Day – and I am sitting here in the wildly leaping heart of Jerusalem. The fireworks are expressing themselves something beautiful. The streets are exploding with foamy spray & sticky with Gold Star. But I am at home. My kids are sleeping and all known babysitters in existence are out “getting their drunk on”. Plus I work at night. And apparently not everyone celebrates Yom Ha’atzmaut in this country.

Which is how it came to be that I spent my Yom Ha’atzmaut evening doing therapy with Mona, a lovely  woman from Bethlehem. Every week she braves the border between our two estranged towns to come here for our “sacred talk sessions”.

I will admit, as we sat down to our work there was a small and lamentable voice in me that wondered, “Why in G!d’s name am I here doing therapy with a woman from Bethlehem – tonight of all nights?! Shouldn’t I be out there teeming with the masses? And more than that, shouldn’t I be out there teaming up with MY team? You know, the Israel team. Not the Bethlehem team. Not the Universal Team. But My Team. On this of all nights!?”

I quickly put that nontherapeutic voice away. After all, I know and trust that everything happens for a reason. So I turned the dial to ‘Curiosity’ rather than ‘Regret’ and opened my heart to listen – to this woman – to the moment – to the way that G!d articulates Light in the most unexpected ways. I trusted that this was my Yom Ha’atzmaut for a reason.

And so Mona spoke, as clients are wont to do, about her week, her feelings, her pains. We zoned in on her squeakiest wheel. Her self-doubt. At work. In the face of criticism. Especially undeserved criticism.

She called the place where she worked a “big fat dysfunctional system”. The therapist in me knew to poke around for a link back to her family of origin. And, yes, there it was, blatant and begging for attention. That ancient pattern etched deep inside of her. A critical mother. A Loveless father. And her, the little girl, hurt, scared, unseen. Mona’s work space was the perfect storm, the precise replica, of all her deepest childhood pains.

Thankfully, there is often that point in a good session when THE SHIFT HITS THE FAN. When a shift happens and the healing rushes in. And this was a good session. Mona had entered her childhood pain — thoroughly and fearlessly. And felt it. Remarkably, through that feeling the shift slipped in and a reframe came shimmering through.

Suddenly, instead of experiencing her reality as that helpless chastised little girl, Mona started to see things through her adult eyes, through healed eyes. And with that shift she realized so magnificently, “Wait, I don’t have to be the victim here. I am a nurturer. I want to nurture the space where I work. I can create the functional system I am most yearning for. If I want a work environment full of positive feedback and praise, then I must be the one to offer that positivity & praise. It’s that easy.”

Suddenly Mona was envisioning herself as the mother of this poor dysfunctional family of endearing characters at her work. As a mother, she sincerely wanted to see this family flourish and succeed. As a mother, instead of fearing their looming critiques she felt concern for them, not for herself. As a mother she was an active giver to the system, not just an unfortunate recipient of its ‘crazy’. She realized she didn’t just have a job, she had a vocation. And a vocation worth nurturing.

Yes, perhaps she had been unjustly criticized. But that wasn’t her focus now. Her focus was, “How can this family best flourish? And how can I be the one to make it happen?” – Mona left the session beaming and eager to greet the next day, no matter the critiques that might come her way.

As she left, back to her side of the tracks, my thoughts gently fell upon Israel, my Israel. This big fat dysfunctional system where we work & play. This place that is the perfect storm trigger of all of our childhood pains and national traumas.

How often I feel like the victim here. Daily even. I feel like the victim of Anti-Semitism, of terror, of wildly undeserved criticism. Daily I am exasperated and steeped in resentment.

And, admittedly, it is not without reason. Yes, it is true that Israel is being attacked relentlessly, unduly blamed. I have no doubt of that truth. But the real question for me – tonight at least –  is not, “Is it true”….but rather, “Is it helpful?”

Is it helpful – for me – for you – for anyone – to steep in resentment-enriched victimized pain? Will that really help this country thrive? Or is there a better way to nurture our undeniably shared reality in this region?

After all, in Israel we are inextricably interwoven with our Arab neighbors. G!d made it this way for a reason. And I must trust that it is a good reason.  We are not just independent, we are interdependent…whether we like it or not. Might as well find what there is to like about it. Might as well create something more likable.

So tonight I chose to love this big fat dysfunctional system for all its wonders, its quirks, its ills.

Tonight I chose to mother this estranged family of brothers, sisters and cousins that is the Middle East.

Tonight I will feed this patchwork mishpacha with praise and positivity.

Thank you, Mona from Bethlehem, for making my Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Thank you for your Interdependence.

I look forward to the day when Jews and Muslims will have cause to celebrate – together – beneath peaceful fireworks, on Israel’s sticky interweaving streets.

Passover Cleaning

Love  it or hate it you can’t escape it

might as well make it somethin’ sacred.

Celebrated.

– It’s all about how you frame it.

And I’ll tell you how
cause I’ve donned the gloves and gown
and crown me with a tin crown.

Because I’m like Moses goin’ down to Egypt
this kitchen is my Pharoah
and I’m gonna defeat it
gonna clean it
’til it shines like Venus
I mean it – I’m a Passover genius.

Got my squirt bottle in high throttle
better believe it.
– Gonna cook a brisket
‘cuz I got masses on the guest list.

I’m sleepless and shameless
& this hametz is heinous.

But don’t blame us.
We’re the world’s most famous
obsessive compulsives
on the A-list.

But matza medicates us and uplifts this
downtrodden nation of misfits.

Did I mention
I got a tin foil kitchen?
We give new meaning to anal-retention.

But you gotta appreciate the vision.
Stop your kvetchin’ over cleaning.
This is your mansion
your temple, your mission!

Scrub it with a passion
– for G!d in the details.
Were living like a fairy tale
Following bread crumbs like a trail.

So yeah Freud might say were outrageous

And diagnose us with a neurosis
but he never knew the sweetness of Shabbas
in the land that G!d promised.

Never knew how real freedom
is born out of bondage.

So start up your sweepin’
And I’ll see you smiling wide
On the other side
Of freedom.

There’s this documentary I saw when I was getting ready to give birth to this here one-month old miracle strapped to my chest as I type. The documentary was entitled “Orgasmic Birth”.

Attention grabbing, isn’t it?

Well, it caught mine tight. Like the promise of sunshine in Siberia. I mean, my previous labor was as close as I ever want to come to a two-day stint at Guantanamo Bay. Waterboarding aint got nothin’ on prolonged back-labor.

I wanted – needed – this birth to be different. And here was this video depicting labor as orgasmic bliss, replete with footage of real live women having the most glorious experiences of their lives. So utterly different from my 48-hours of agony. Could birth-pangs really be morphed into ecstasy…or were they just trying to sell some CDs?

And so I started doing my research. First stop – Uncle Morris. Or rather, Doctor Morris. Morris, you must understand, is a seasoned genius of an OB-GYN. He has delivered many hundreds of babies into the world. Masterfully.

I’ll never forget his cackle of incredulity when I asked him about this whole orgasmic birth business.  “You’re kidding right?” He balked, “It’s got to be a hoax. I’ve never heard of it and there’s no chance it is possible. Birth is just plain painful.”  He was certain. And he’s the expert after all. He’s the one who reads those indecipherable medical journals and attends conferences in Hawaii. I’m just some dreamy-eyed Ina-May-reading mystic.

My heart sunk a few fathoms. And yet I would not be deterred so easily…Not when my prospects were either sure torture or a c-section.

So I turned to my friends. Luckily my friends are also dreamy-eyed Ina-May-reading mystics. And luckily they have lots of babies. We’re talking Jerusalem’s Superwomen who have gone through labor some 6, 7, 8 times. Most of them home-birthed. All of them hard-core.

Out of their mouths started pouring the most amazing tales of birth…pain-free births mind you.

And I quote:

“Well, I would never call the contractions painful…It was more like pressure. Intense pressure.”

“I have my own system worked out. I have my babies at home in the tub. I breathe through it and there’s no pain.”

“I don’t call them contractions, I call them waves and I just surrender to them. ”

“I find a corner of the house, get real quiet. I focus in and push ’em out.”

And the list went on.

Of course they weren’t all like this. But enough of them were to give a girl some hope again.

What stood out most were the stories of hypnobirthing.  That is, hypnotizing oneself out of the experience of pain. And for the lucky few, that means out of the experience of pain and into the experience of pleasure.

A pleasurable contraction! Imagine that! And IMAGINE THAT is right, because that’s exactly how you  achieve it. In your imagination.

A friend lent me her 6 CDs of hypnobirth training. It was basically a boot-camp in self-hypnotism. The CDs fed positive messages into my unconscious. “You are surrounded by a bubble of peace.” “You WILL  have a happy healthy birth.” “You are safe & serene.”

It was like stuffing the unconscious ballot box for a blissful birth.  My job was to breathe, relax, become highly suggestible and take my daily CD hypno-breaks. Which I did religiously. I was giddy with it all, busy building an inner-epidural out of mere imagination.

When the big day came I plugged in my ear-phones and pushed play….with a prayer that all that dreamy subconscious suggestion would pay off.

And paid off it did, my friends.

I simply watched the contractions sweep through my body as if I was an amazed spectator. They danced over me at graceful ten-minute intervals. 4:57am, 5:07am, 5:14am. Like a perfectly choreographed routine. I witnessed my body work its own mysterious & metered wisdom. Like a waltz. No pain, just witnessing. No pain, just waves.

And then it kicked into high gear. 5 minute intervals. 3 minute intervals. Pressure intensified. And this is when that Holy Grail I’d been hoping for came into sight. Because with the intensified possibility of pain came this sudden and massive influx of pleasure.

It was as if I was plugged into the universe’s most epic electric socket. The sizzling energy that had scorched me in my last birth, this time just lit me up. Like a buzzing generator, strong enough to light up a small city at midnight.

This time I breathed. I focused. I used the voltage to my advantage.

Somehow I had learned how to harness the immensity of it all. The energy rolled around in my lower abdomen. Fuzzy and vibrating. Vibrant and expansive. I felt like an old-world alchemist turning lead into gold. My body spinning pleasure out of pain.

And this lasted for several hours. A joyful ecstatic state…dilating, opening, awesome, holy.

Though the popular literature calls it an orgasmic birth, I prefer to leave the sexual baggage at the door and simply label it ECSTATIC. After all, this sensation was so much vaster than mere sexuality. It was life force. It was mystic lava. The bedrock of existence. It was a soul bath in warm cream. Doused in my own mind-made opiates.

For hours, yall.

Until it ended.

And end it did, I admit.

By the time I was fully dilated I just couldn’t keep my focus any more. Like Icarus hitting  the pavement. I hit transition and turned into an angry and desperate animal. I yanked the ear plugs out and began my 40 minute birth-pang dance of hell. Replete with all sorts of messy yelling, cursing and gnashing of teeth as I pushed this dear child out of me. Not pretty.

But, hey,  40 minutes compared to 48 hours…with a mega-dose of bliss along the way. Well, I was the world’s happiest postpartum mama at the end of it all. Thank you hypno-birthing. Thank you Ina May. Thank you Superwomen of Jerusalem & our mighty imaginations. Thank you baby.

*

And all of this is to say YOU CAN do it too. This story is not just intended for the pregnant among us. It can apply to anyone who believes they can create their wildest dreams out of thin air & imagination.

As a psychotherapist my main task is Life-Crafting — helping my clients to sculpt out their ideal realities from the pain of their lives. We are the all-too-often reluctant authors of our narratives. Our scripts and scenes are ours to dream.

If a woman in birth can wrangle absolute ecstasy out of life’s most immense pain, then we can all create our ideal realities. With the help of a little self-hypnotism & holy gullibility.

*

Here’s my RECIPE for creating your wildest dreams:

BREATHE – The main ingredient here is breath. Lots of oxygen intake. After all, this is how we humans were brought into being. The great Creator blew His/Her breath into our nostrils. Every time we breathe we are partaking of that very divinity. And with it, we access our own most divine ability to craft reality.

RELAXATION – A relaxed body makes for an open mind. Banish stress. Put your tongue to the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth. This will automatically relax your jaw. Which will automatically relax your shoulders. Which will automatically relax your entire body. Which will automatically relax your mind. Which will automatically relax your very reality into softer, more malleable stuff.

SEROTONIN & HER COUSINS – When we relax we get to partake in all the lovely hormones that come with that relaxed state. Dopamine.  Phenylethylamine. These positive hormones are the soup of life-sculpting. Imbibe.  

ARTICULATION – You can talk yourself in to this! In fact, you must start with self-talk. Begin with some good convincing and you will end up with good conviction. Positive affirmations are key. G!d said “Let there be light,” and just look at all this sparkly bright stuff surrounding us. Whatever it is that you want to create, state it, and repeat. State it and repeat.

HOLY GULLIBILITY – Don’t be fooled by the hitherto fixities of reality. Believe in the impossible. Like Ben Gurion said, “In order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”  Know with reckless certainty that you can have that job or that guy or, yes, even that certainty.

Believe.

*

JEWISH POST-SCRIPT: And finally, just to end with a little juicy Jewish post-script. Our sources say that the Messianic Era will be preceded with Chevlei Mashiach – the birth pangs of the Messiah. It’s a handy Jewish metaphor for all the most dreadful things imaginable. The era before our ideal new world is born is classically understood to be accompanied by horrific pain.  But what happens when we apply the above birth vision to this Messianic idea? Suddenly the pain is morphed into pleasure. With a committed dose of focused breathing, belief and holy gullibility may we witness the overturning of pain into nothing short of ecstasy.

And for you expecting mamas out there. I am so jazzed about this approach to birth I would love to tell you more about how to achieve it yourself. (Hopefully without the 40 minute dance of hell at the end!) Please do contact me at chaya@shalevcenter.org

These are my tefillin straps.
– A religious woman’s tension
over how to act.

Bound & taut
with what we’ve been taught,
we wear our paradox upon our heads
– like a bright black box.

But these tensions
are heavier than leather.
Heaven-given
and we know it better
than any brother
for we are tied-up & tethered
by this inner conflict of the modern era.

We are mothers of invention.
Tending fires of the ancients.

We pay rapt attention
to each injunction
yet feel the rub of our impatience.

Finally given space
for us to question
mark our caution
cast reflection
ponder long and hard and honest…
What is a Jewish woman’s mission?
And when is preservation progress?

For, yes, my soul has lept
– with wild abandon –
into this religion’s sacred trap.

And I do not for a second
regret
the decision
to bear the contradictions
that mark the marble of this path.

Rather wrap me deep in the tension
and I will bless those very straps.

*

And as for the issue at hand
of what we wrap round our hands…

I, for one, am not called to spin
tefillin’s web around my limbs.

This is not my call to arms
– and yet, I must contend –
that if a sister’s soul should feel so moved
to that service
then by all means
do I endorse it.

Grant us equal access.
Do not make us outcasts
for adding ritual to our practice.
– If we want it, then allow it,
uplift it, endow it.

*

And instead of inquiring what a woman’s motives are…
Inquire of yourself –
what binds you closer to God?

And if it be little black boxes of parchment
that keeps you tight with your Maker
then so be it
and so don it!

And if it be through arguing and debate
then argue
and own it!

And we will gaze upon the seventieth face of Torah
as it peers through the curtain.

And we will stand together
to shoulder the grandeur
of this tradition
with shared purpose.

*

May we wake in the morning
and be filled with a yearning
to bind ourselves to something higher
something wholly worth serving.

Let us make a sanctuary of our days.
Be bound, firm and unswayed
by distractions and debasements
in the basement of our being
but rather be uplifted by holy words
that crown our heads with meaning.

Whether through parchment or simple prayer,
– this morning,
brush something holy through your hair.

Sanctify the contradictions
for the sake of heaven.
Bind yourself
to something majestic
feel the tensions
and then bless them.

It was the bris
which broke the camel’s back.

I was another skirt
at the outskirts
of another ritual act.

Standing en pointe
straining my ears
while some distant ceremony
was unfolding something holy
left me running
for refreshments
while the women sat & chatted
and I hated
their lack of focus.

Like a plague on our purses
left us voiceless
in the chorus.

Disinvited to the very recital
we were best equipped to lead.

All of us suffering from a certain type of laryngitis
known specifically to women
in Orthodoxy.

I diagnose it
a dire case of
‘Misplaced Modesty’
and I,
I just wanted relief…

So I shook my fists
at the mechitza
and cursed any Jewish belief
that cheats women
out of our participation
our punctuation
of public speech.

All I wanted was a woman’s voice
a woman’s vision
at that instant
as that infant
was handed over
the lacy division
from his 9-monthed mother
to be sculpted
into our honorable tradition.

But all that was given
was silence and stifling
and the crying of a child
somewhere on the horizon
of the men’s section
which I could hardly hear
could barely see.

Starved of my senses
and sensibilities,
I slipped outside
to bleed out my disbelief
on the street.

Called together my closest sisters
bewildered,
“How can you stand there consensual
and invisible
and still call this sacred community?”

And forgive me if I seem angry.
It is merely the sound of my soul banging
against a box too small
to contain me.

It is merely the moan of wheels moving
for the first time in millennia.
Churning out the momentum
for a direly needed
direction change.

For this silence blasting
from the women’s seats
is a testimony
to that which lays woefully
Incomplete.

*

For women in Orthodoxy
are like a vast forest
of redwood trees
planted neatly in flower pots
from the time they were seeds.

We are a force of nature
holding itself back
– politely –
like a box of lightning.

We are potential – unmet, long-trapped,
untapped and gasping to be freed.

So brothers in power
The time has come to give your sisters
their earned place
and rightful say.

We are gifted with voice & wisdom
– let us speak.
Listen careful to the maggid that teaches from
between our teeth.

The time has come for women
to be essential players
in life-cycles & ceremonies.

Let us be redwood trees
Not lumber,
But luminaries.

And this will be the bris
that broke the camel’s back
– a point of no return
to the status quo of ‘held back’.

Welcome, Paris

It is 4 am and I am up again
like so many other pre-dawn mornings
spent wrapped in blankets of worry.

Like when the war this summer
left me sleepless, speechless
in the heat of the fighting.

But now I am shivering and it is raining in Jerusalem
and there is little chance of sirens on my horizon this morning.

– What there is is Paris
petrified – in the wintertime.
What there is is images of
6 Jews fearful in a freezer
10 slaughtered artists
3 gunned-down police
4 martyred hostages
and the myriad 1000s of mourners,
hoisting candles, held in vigils
for another barbaric crime
against humanity.

And beneath my compassion
and my tears tinted by this computer screen
– I feel justified.
‪#‎jesuisjustifiée‬

For the senseless murder of innocents
has already kept me up, carved me up,
so many nights.

And now Paris will also be sleepless
in the face of terrorists,
those self-same terrorists
that taunt my dreams.

And maybe, just maybe,
the world will be woken
from her blind-eyed slumber.

Shaken up enough to get what we
have long been ‘getting’ in abundance.

This insomnia in the face of fanatics
with automatic
weapons and rites of violence
in the name of their religion
– the Islamic religion…

There I named it…
I thought to maybe leave it generic
for fear of being offensive.

But that would have been but another twisted
defeat for truth-speaking.
And the truth already has too many corpses
strewn on the streets this week.

*
So no, I will give the truth its deserved say.
I will name this darkness
for I have seen it
from the front-lines of my very children’s lives
as I send them to the Jerusalem bus stop
– terrified.

This is the face of the darkness, my friends,
Study well its features.
This is the Islamic fundamentalism
that strives to destroy
your liberties, your equalities, your fraternities.

This is the rabid enemy the world
demands Israel befriend, bend to,
appease.

This is the spreading darkness against which
we defend our borders, our families,
our humanity.

*
Dear blurry-eyed world,
our enemy is your enemy.

When you condemn Israel
– you condemn your own future.

When you sanction us
– you slash your own right hand.

When you damn us
– you yourselves are damned.

So welcome to sleeplessness, Paris.
Welcome to truth.
We mourn with you.
– With love,
Jerusalem

“Advertise Miracles” – that’s the Hanukah mission statement. ‘Tis the season to make some noise about how G!d is really the One running the show.

In that spirit, I want to add a few stories to the holiday advertisement.

First off, though, a definition. A miracle according to Merriam-Webster is: “An extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs”.

I happen to believe that the Divine is guiding all our affairs…but we’re talking about those EXTRA-ordinary outstanding affairs that put the mundane to shame. Those big blasting life-enhancing messages of Yes G!d-is-in-charge-here so take a glimpse and don’t ever forget it.

For me these glimpses often come down in the form of dreams. Miracle dreams. Dreams that reveal divine intervention in human affairs.

That is to say, dreams that actually come true.

And I’ve been graced with a few. (Perhaps you have too?)

Remarkably, mine seem to have had a theme. Most notably, plane crashes. We’re talking large-scale news-breaking plane crashes.

Let’s start with the first. It was the 21st of December, 1988. I was 14 years-old.

(Side-note: As I am writing this I see – shockingly – that the date of this dream isexactly 26 years ago to the day. How’s that for a small miracle?!)

*

The dream:

I see that there is a plane flying from London to New York. I witness it explode and crash down to the ground. I am worried because my good friend Lindsey is vacationing in London. I feel a wave of concern  that she and her family are on the plane. – And poof, I wake up.

What happened next was particularly striking. I can still remember the feeling in my bones – it was this peculiar sense that I was moving via remote control. My eyes snapped open and I popped straight up. Robot-like, I stood and walked – directly, pointedly and without thought – down the hall to my parent’s bedroom. I went straight to the TV. Sat myself down and clicked “on”.

Lo-and-behold there it was. The breaking breath-taking news on NBC. I didn’t even need to flip the channel. It was all there in front of me. Materializing on my parent’s 20-inch screen in Memphis, Tennessee.

I watched hypnotically as the nightmare unrolled in real life. Only this time it was fleshed out with details. Pan Am flight 103. Flying from London Heathrow Airport to New York JFK. Crashing down in Lockerbie, Scotland.

Lindsey, thankfully, was not on the plane, but 260 people were. And another 11 Scots killed on the ground.

This was one of the deadliest acts of terror that had ever occurred. With 189 Americans killed, it was the largest terror attack the US had ever known. This was the Lockerbie plane crash. And it was world-captivating news.

But not for me.

I had just turned 14. I didn’t know from prophetic dreams. I had zero interest in G!d or world events. I was on holiday break. I just wanted to hang out with my friends. I told no one about this inexplicable experience. I simply stored the whole unsettling event away in the vaults of my memory.

But I watched – quietly – as over the years there was a dream here, a prescient knowing there. Small hushed glimpses of some vast Force moving the game pieces…my game pieces…the world’s game pieces.

*

Now I can imagine that a story about foreseeing the Lockerbie tragedy might be a particularly disturbing example of witnessing G!d’s hand in the world. And I get that. The main point, though, for me, was more about the sudden download of otherwise unknowable information — straight into my 14-year old consciousness. That was the miracle for me. That uncanny felt sense of being moved from on high, as if bidden, guided, propelled.

It was this striking sensation of dangling by the strings of a benevolent cosmic puppeteer. Even as the facts on the ground were tragic, the experience was somehow comforting. I found that seeing divine intervention – even, and especially, in the dark moments – brings its own unique comfort.

*

Thankfully there were rosier moments of divine glimpses to come. Happier ones, helpful ones, utterly Illuminating ones.

Ones like that summer afternoon in ’89 when I again had that sense of being moving via remote control. I was struck by a deep compulsion to get up, walk myself to the bathroom, brush my hair and put on lip gloss. I then robotically positioned myself at the living-room window, peering directly on to the street. Sure enough, within 45 seconds a small caravan of cars pull in to our quiet cove. I watched, with shock, as my friends poured out of the cars, whispering and shushing each other as they snuck up furtively to our door. All to surprise me with a stealth pick-up to go get soft-serve ice-cream.

It wasn’t much of a surprise of course…what with my remote control G!d force and all.

It was apparently more important that I should have my hair brushed just right. And more important than that, that I should be learning that I can have a direct wireless connection to a divine message center…and that it can come in handy. Particularly when you’re 15 and want  your lip-gloss properly applied just in the nick of time.

Thankfully, as I matured the dreams and visions did too. They continued into more significant themes, replete with decipherable messages and deep with meaning.

Like that precious unforgettable dream foreseeing the day that my grandfather would pass away –  6 months before it was to occur. The dream revealed the date of death and the exact constellation of people who would be present at the funeral. Thus giving me 6 solid months to prepare for the inevitable loss.

Or the many dreams of seeing the sex of unborn babies in the bellies of friends and family. Or more recent dreams about my therapy clients. Dreams that guide me in how best to treat  them. Giving me  invaluable, otherwise unattainable, information about what is going on deep in the unconscious.

I have seen time and again how sleep can be our greatest classroom. And how G!d is the master Instructor and essential Mover of all realities.

*

I still don’t know why I was given that prescient vision of Lockerbie. Don’t know what, if anything, it had to do with me. – Perhaps it was because the explosion was rumored to be performed by Palestinians, a passive attack on what would later become my beloved Israel. Or perhaps it was that my friend was there and so I was psychically tuned-in with concern.

Or perhaps it was just to give my teenage-self a good dose of spiritual instruction. To attune me early-on to the fact that dreams are serious pathways for the revelation of otherwise hidden knowledge of the way G!d runs things.

Whatever the case may be, I treasure the earth-shaking clarity of these experiences. They are my own miraculous glimpses of divine intervention and they sustain me in times of darkness & confusion. After all, isn’t it in those darkest of moments when we most need to see the divine in things?

*

Not only that, but it is in the dark that we can sometimes BEST see the divine in things.

In addition to it being Hannukah, today is also the winter solstice. Just as it was on the day of the Lockerbie Tragedy of 1988. It is the darkest day of the year. It is also an immense & ironic opportunity for vision.

This is the time to tend well to our night-visions and reap the wisdom that comes uniquely in the darkness.

So this Hannukah, in the light of our little candles, may we share our miracle stories. May we celebrate the divine hand that dances us all forward so magnificently.

May we advertise well the miracles that we have seen. And may we ourselves be walking miracles – where the highest divine touches down into the deepest and even darkest of worldly realities.