Jewish Women United, from Australia to Israel to New Orleans

My husband just got back from Canada after 3 weeks visiting family, and it’s been a very busy, draining summer vacation for me dealing with everything and everyone all on my own, so this week I took myself on an overnight to the North to finally have a chance to hear myself think.

Yesterday, the second day of my trip, I took a bus and then walked about half an hour to reach Ramat HaNadiv, the spectacular memorial gardens of Baron Rothschild outside of Zichron Yaakov. On my way back to the bus around 5 PM, on a deserted side road overlooking the stunning Carmel hills, I felt completely alone in the world. Not in a depressing way, but in a refreshing, delicious-solitude way. Just me and the Carmel hills and the sound of my footsteps on the hot pavement.

And then my phone pinged. I looked and saw it was a whatsapp from Rebbetzin Mina Esther Gordon of Melbourne, the source of many of my favorite posts. Rebbetzin Mina had sent something her sister-in-law Rebbetzin Bluma Rivkin of Chabad of New Orleans had posted along with her daughter-in-law Malki Rivkin on the Shluchos Mikvah Attendants’ chat about accompanying the first lady to the Mikveh in the broiling-hot, electricity-less ruins of post-hurricane New Orleans.

So I sent a whatsapp from middle-of-nowhere, Israel to Melbourne, Australia to ask Rebbetzin Mina if she could could request permission to post it.

Right away, Rebbetzin Mina sent a message to Rebbetzin Bluma in New Orleans to request permission. And a whatsapp was sent in response from New Orleans to Melbourne granting permission, along with photos and a link to an article about the New Orleans mikveh.

By the time I had everything set and ready to post, I was standing in the Tel Aviv train station, waiting for the train to Jerusalem, covered with goosebumps. Why? Because of whatsapps sent from Melbourne to Israel to New Orleans and back again.

Those goosebumps surprised me because yesterday was far from the first time that I had been involved in this kind of international round robin around posts. But this time it moved me deeply. Right before Rosh Hashana, experiencing how 3 Jewish women divided by thousands of miles and 15 times zones were working together, standing together before God.

Technology and laser-quick communication can be a distraction from what is important, from connecting with Hashem.

But that whatsapp conversation from Melbourne to Israel to Louisiana and back again, I felt, gave me a microscopic glimpse of how Hashem will be watching the Jewish people this Rosh Hashana. Spread far and wide across the globe, blowing shofar and eating apples with honey and praying in different cities and synagogues and homes, but united in our ancient traditions and belief unshaken, despite the unfathomable suffering and persecution we’ve suffered throughout the ages.. Physically in different corners of the world but, in Hashem’s loving eyes, standing side-by-side, hand-in-hand.