I Create As I Speak

Beverly Hills is filled with accomplished women serving in important roles like Mayor, City Manager, and Director of Public Works. This small city with a big heart encourages civic participation. Over the past few years I have joined the Small Business Task Force, was appointed to the Recreation and Parks Commission, and became a member of the Rotary Club. Yet I’m still searching for more ways to connect and help.  

A few weeks ago I learned that the guest rabbi at my friend’s shul was going to talk about why the world needs women leaders now. I had to attend the Shabbat dinner to hear what I expected would be Rabbi Tamar Elad-Applebaum’s call to public service and advice on how to do more in our community.

However she didn’t talk about that. She spoke about the destruction of the Second Temple, and how during the chaos and destruction four Hebrew words transformed from masculine to feminine.

Shabbat – time

Yerushalayim (City of Peace) –space

Torah –instruction

Tefillah –mind and spirit connection

I was fascinated by this dramatic shift. Perhaps these concepts needed an infusion of feminine energy, like strength and hope, which can be found in the feminine words for sword and sunrise.

The rabbi then explained the divine spark, the neshuma, that is contained in every being and that the word for women in Hebrew, neshim, comes from neshuma. She taught that when times were at their darkest, strong women rose up to lead. We are supposed to follow in the footsteps of teachers, seekers, and leaders of imagination like Queen Esther, Moses’s sister Miriam, and the first convert Ruth. Rabbi Tamar reminded us that we have each been given a life and that we must determine who we are destined to be.

As a young child Miriam began to fulfill her destiny without knowing it. She begged and convinced her father Amram not to leave her mother Jochebed. Had he left, Moses never would have been born and we wouldn’t be celebrating the story of Exodus on Saturday.

To find our purpose, we must find our voice. Power exists in our words. We must not remain silent if we want to create a world worth living in.

Learning with the rabbi about the importance of a female voice reminded me of a profound experience I had in 2017 while visiting my friend’s remote hillside home in Luberon, Provence, which was once used by the French Resistance during WWII.

One afternoon we toured the neighbor’s property. There were a series of buildings that oddly connected to each other over decades of expansion. One structure had a kitchen with an indoor well. I peered over it and spied an old wooden wagon wheel with a piece of paper taped to it. There were three Hebrew letters written on it. I asked our hostess Chloe what it meant. She didn’t know and had never seen the paper until I pointed it out.

So, I emailed my rabbi and he answered that the word was kesher, meaning knot or connection. Sometimes it even means rainbow. I was fascinated by my find and started to research whether it had any connection to the partisans of Luberon. I wondered if it was a code word used in the underground.

I discovered that during the war there were young Jewish women known as kashariyot, from the Hebrew word kesher. They passed as Poles and risked their lives in German-occupied Eastern Europe connecting with Jews across the ghettos. Their missions included bringing news of the outside world and smuggling weapons, money, medical supplies, secret documents, forged identity cards and even Jews in and out of the ghettos. They were the connectors and because of their efforts to mobilize others and to spread the news of mass murders, these fearless heroes were the heart of the Jewish resistance.

Rozka Korczak, a leader of the Jewish underground in Vilna wrote about when Tosia Altman, one of the most famous kashariyot from Warsaw arrived in December 1941:

“Tosia came. It was like a blessing of freedom.
 Just the information that she came. 
It spread among the people. …
As if there were no ghetto. …
As if there was no death around.
As if we were not in this terrible war.
 A beam of love.
 A beam of light.”

I doubt I have the courage that the kashariyot possessed. I hope I’ll never need to find out. Yet, I do know how to use my words, whether in an essay or at a community meeting.

As we share stories with friends and family this weekend, let’s be teachers, seekers, and leaders of the imagination. Abracadabra! (I create as I speak!) Next year in the city of peace!

May this holiday bless you with the power to use your voice for bringing more light to the world.