The influential Reb Mendel Potrepas told of a farmer in a remote village in Russia who needed to reach Moscow.
The farmer was a very simple man who intended to ride a horse to Moscow. He was told that it would take months and that instead he would be better off taking the train. The farmer had never seen a train.
They explained to him that it was a machine that traveled much faster than a horse and had luxurious and simple carriages. Our farmer decided to indulge himself and buy a first-class ticket.
He stands on the platform waiting for the train, but doesn't know what to do or what to expect. Three people are standing next to him and he decides to act like them, he just doesn't know that all three of them are getting on without a ticket...
The train arrives and they board the third class. The three had a sort of agreement whereby one would stand at the door of the carriage and warn the ticket inspector when he arrived.
A few moments pass and the guard and his friends leap from under the benches, and the farmer follows them.
And there - dirt, dust and cobwebs. The farmer thought that this was how people travel on the train. This was repeated at every station, until one day, one of them was not hiding well, his leg stuck out and the inspector caught them all, demanding to see a ticket.
When the visitor arrived at our farmer's house, he took the ticket out of his pocket, a first-class ticket...
The shocked visitor asked him: "If you have a first class ticket, why are you traveling third class, and under a bench?""
Rabbi Mendel finished the story by saying: "People live their whole lives in third class with cobwebs, even though they have a first class ticket.".
There is hope.
At the end of a nearly two-hour meeting in the Committee on the Status of Women in a discussion about ultra-Orthodox women, a lot of emotional baggage had accumulated around the committee table.
There was the story of the overworked kindergarten teachers who are given a paycheck of 8,000 shekels and given less than half of that amount. There was the story of the caregivers who earn minimum wage, who can't complain because they were told that there are many more who would agree to work like them.
And even the story of female assistants who are forced to 'retire' at the age of 55, without rights and without social conditions, claiming that they "have run out of steam.".
We heard the stories of single-parent women in the Haredi sector and many stories about discrimination between women and men in the allocation of resources for acquiring a profession in the Haredi community. .
And we haven't even talked about the lack of health information for women about women's cancer and about fertility difficulties and pregnancy and childbirth complications - and this time not because of the government, but because of the Haredi media that refrains from publishing on these topics.
Or about women who are agunat and refused a get, who due to their Haredi lifestyle cannot form new relationships that are contrary to the Holy Torah. Women who stand alone against an insensitive government bureaucracy.
Amidst all the pain and sorrow that came to the committee's table, there was also a tone of optimism and, above all, faith.
The chairwoman of the committee, MK Suleiman Ida, summed up the discussion by saying: "Despite the difficulties, I hear about many successes. As a woman, I am proud to see that we are beginning a path of action. We will have to join hands to achieve more achievements. I did not hear any voices of sacrifice here. There is a lot of strength in this room and a lot of desire to do and change.".
Ida also noted the fact that the discussion was not about poverty, saying: "When they say there are poor children, it means that women are below the poverty line. This is something that requires social change and it takes many years. But that does not absolve anyone of the responsibility to address it.".
Spiritual needs
After the discussion ended, I approached the chairwoman and thanked her for her words of encouragement and hope. I added that the Haredi woman is composed of body and soul, and that beyond her health, occupational, economic, and marital needs that came up in the discussion, there are also spiritual needs. It is the spirit that strengthens the body, and it is impossible to survive the challenges of Jewish life without the Jewish spirit.
I said that when an ultra-Orthodox woman knows that she has a first-class ticket in her pocket, even a life of stress from choosing to allow her husband to remain in the sanctuary of Torah and support ten people can pass her by, out of a sense of calm and expansion of the soul.
Although Suleiman is Arab, the words were accepted and she quickly said that she intended to convene a discussion on the cultural and artistic needs of women.
""Of course I would like Haredi women to come and present their cultural needs," said Suleiman. In other words, there is a chance that a solution will be found to the plight of Haredi educational frameworks for women, even if it is not about vocational studies, but rather about Torah studies and spiritual strengthening.
Love and comfort
In the spirit of these days, days of comfort, double comfort – comfort, comfort my people – we remember our wedding, of the Knesset of Israel with the Holy One.
The proximity between the comfort of Shabbat Nechamo and the love of Tu B'Av is not accidental. It occurs every year because there is a connection between the two things.
Comfort and love are synonymous words with the same message ("And he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her, and Isaac comforted her after his mother"). The comfort in the haftarat Nehamu stems from the great love of God, the Blessed, for the people of Israel, and is therefore double.
The consolation after the destruction stems from joy in what is, and from the understanding that the world of the Torah of Babylon, or that of "Yavneh and its sages," is the path to the nation's reawakening. Because the Holy Torah is the one that will lead us to true and complete redemption, which is not followed by exile.
• Part of the column is based on the talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe | The writer is the owner of "My Choice", an event host, lecturer, and radio broadcaster. | For comments:[email protected]
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