by Deanna Zyndorf, Snorkeling & Study 07

Let me start off by saying that I never intentionally planned on going to Key Largo for some Jewish spiritual retreat. I admit that I’m a conservative Jew, who like many non Orthodox Jews, doesn’t keep strictly Kosher or go to services regularly.  Growing up and living in a city where you can’t distinguish the Jews from the non-Jews and people view not eating bread on Passover as a sign of true religious devotion, I could not understand why the strictly religious Jews, the Orthodox Jews, refused to get with the times.  Why do men continue to resemble storybook characters like Mr. Sowerberry from Oliver Twist, with their ridiculously large top hats and suits? And don’t the women ever turn on the television or glance at fashion magazines, at least at the checkout counter at the local supermarket? In the 1850s, women began to wear bloomers and then pants in the 1920s to 30s.  Yet these Orthodox women continue to sport their long skirts and unrevealing shirts—not to mention, the married women wear wigs or scarves to cover their hair.  These bizarre fashion statements, among other things, perplexed me.  Hadn’t society reached a cultural liberation in which everyone could just do his or her own thing?

by Tzivia Emmer

Timmy Rubin’s face lights up when she talks about her job running the Lubavitch mikvah in Melbourne, Australia. Timmy (whose Hebrew name is Tamara) has been mikvah lady for the beautiful “five-star” facility since it opened 12 years ago, having received a blessing from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to move back to her native Australia and accept the job.

Saying Timmy is a mikvah lady, however, is something of an understatement. She and her husband, psychologist Dr. Kalman Rubin, have built an entire shlichus around the focal point of the mikvah. Dr. Rubin sees to the filtering and maintenance while Timmy conducts tours, goes on speaking engagements, speaks to Bat Mitzvah girls and their mothers, and attracts a whole new generation to Judaism by talking about mikvah and about her personal journey. Timmy emphasizes the shared shlichus of running the mikvah. “I’m only the front person,” she says modestly. “My husband maintains it. Let me tell you, when you run a mikvah with 10 bathrooms to maintain and 20 appointments each night... It’s complicated.”

by Shoshana Olidort

When Esther Rosenhaus called her mother from Bais Chana, in S. Paul, Minnesota, she had one objective in mind: “I wanted to get my mom to come to Bais Chana. I loved it so much and I knew she would too, and she deserved it.”

“My daughter told me ‘I’m not coming home until you come,’” says Esther’s mother, Sharon. It was a far cry from where Esther had been when she signed up for her first Bais Chana teen session, in the winter of 2000, something she says she did solely to “please my parents.”

By Leah Sherman

“I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great.”

There are things that we do because we have an innate sense that they are the right things to do. Then there are things that we do because we are taught them. Only after we have learned do we know they are right.

The phone started ringing, and upon waking I began to recite the Modeh Ani prayer. Initially, after I left Minnesota and returned home from my week’s learning at Bais Chana, it took some time to make the recitation a habit, to make it less of an effort to remember. Gradually, with time, it became an automatic response to wake up with the words issuing from my lips. The phone’s ringing brought me out of sleep, its persistent sound jarring me toward wakefulness. Before even the rooster could crow, my humanness received its daily reminder, its daily wake-up call, through the words of the Modeh Ani prayer. Remember in whose presence this phone rings.