Summer is coming to an end even though to me it feels like it somehow evaporated without actually being here. It was a strange summer, indeed, weatherlike. Cold and rainy for the most part, then turning to extreme heat for a little while, and now the days start kind of cold already, lots of rain, then they turn to heat, but the humidity gives you no relief. Yet, I am said to let it go.

On the other hand, I am so happy and excited for it to be over, as this September after almost three years of prep, I am finally starting something that has been on my mind for a long while. And I have to thank COVID (or rather the loss of my ‘steady’ job due to it) for it. I am starting my journey to become a really knowledgeable Jewish educational leader. I am entering a women-only orthodox Yeshivah.

At this point, I can’t even describe my feelings – wonder, fear, hope are just some of them. For years I thought that I could not possibly be worthy of this endeavor, and yet for years I kept learning every chance I had. As terrified as I am of the possibility of a big “R” word, I keep saying to myself that I don’t need and won’t seek to shatter any walls of orthodoxy. I just want to be that person who other women can come to for advice based on real chalachic knowledge. I spent years avoiding asking questions precisely because I did not want to speak to a male Rabbi, and did not care to hear ‘let me talk to my husband’ answers from Rabbis’ wives. I hope I can become worthy of this task that I put in front of myself.

I have to learn a lot. Not only from books, but from people that teach you how to become more caring, more sensitive, more attuned to people’s cries and pain that is sometimes hidden so deeply. I know this pain, now I need to learn how to help others who like me can push it so far that no one sees it. I think this is an even harder task that understanding a page written in Aramaic ‘stenography’ which The Talmud sometimes looks like.

We are now in the month of Elul. This month is simultaneously the month of our special closeness to HaShem, and our extreme trembling accentuated by the sounds of shofar reminding us of our sins, and the necessity of teshuva. Being a person who walked from the anti-religious background of my home country to the one deeply committed to my people’s Gd, Torah, community and land, I hope that the years ahead will bring not only the benefit of knowledge for me, but the benefit of me as a resource and guide to those who are on this path from its very beginning to whatever stage they might be at.

So, wish me luck or בשעה טובה!