HEALTH MIND BODY SOUL
Keeping the fire
BURNING
Bringing some of the inspiration gained in
Israel back home I BY CHANDREA SEREBRO
44 JEWISH LIFE QISSUE 87
FOUR WAS CREATED FOR TRADITIONAL AND SECULAR
JEWISH WOMEN KEEN ON FURTHERING THEIR PERSONAL
AND SPIRITUAL GROWTH IN A NON-JUDGMENTAL,
STIMULATING AND SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.
ested. You’re just busy, you’re making conversation, and you’re moving on to the
next item on the agenda. Maybe you were
just being kind or showing interest in their
lives.” She explains how when her friends
came back from whichever Israel tour they
had just completed, in the past few years,
she always inquired about their trip as if
they went on a nice holiday. She realised
that she was asking by rote, and not as if
they had just been on a life-altering trip
that would “inspire, motivate and ensure
growth in Jewishness and regarding Israel
for the rest of their lives”. And how did she
come to this realisation? Well, this year, she
signed up for the JWRP journey to Israel –
no matter where in the world Jewish women live, we all face the same issues. Coming
from a secular background, I was expecting
a more religious note, perhaps even too
much for me to handle, but it wasn’t. It
wasn’t a serious rabbinical tour that would
scare me away. It was a women’s tour that
hit at the heart of Jewish women’s issues.”
Lori Palatnik, founder of the JWRP, organises this tour, which is intended to ignite
and usher in a new way of thinking about
your relationship with Hashem, and indeed, everyone in your life. It kindles a
flame (no matter how dormant) of Jewish
identity. Kim describes how, “This spark engulfed me, and it will spur me on going for-
PHOTOGRAPHS: SUPPLIED
OFTEN, WE DESCRIBE OUR HOLIDAYS AS THE TRIP
of a lifetime and, I guess, in a way they all
are. Holidays, trips, excursions grow us.
They change us – mostly in small ways, but
they make our memories, pepper our past,
and define us for the future. Sometimes,
we are lucky enough to have an experience
that will literally get under our skin and alter the very fabric of who we are. The Aish
Hatorah Jewish Woman’s Renaissance
Project (JWRP) is renowned for this; countless women from all walks of life come back
from a whirlwind ride in Israel with a lifetime’s worth of spiritual growth which they
experienced in those jam-packed days.
Kim Tobias let me in on a personal wisdom of hers, which really got down to the
nitty-gritty of what a real trip of a lifetime
is all about: “Have you ever asked your
friends, ‘how was your overseas trip?’ as a
matter of courtesy and not truthfully wanting to understand how it really was? Not
because you don’t care, or you aren’t inter-
what she hoped would be a nice trip. “Little
did I realise that when I started out on the
JWRP in May, the next eight days would
enlighten every Jewish sense of my being.
And I would come back changed.”
There they were, 24 secular Jewish women setting off from Johannesburg under
the auspices of Aish HaTorah and the guidance of Rebbetzin Shelley Willis. They arrived in Israel to be greeted by 450 other
Jewish women from all sorts of secular
backgrounds around the world: San Diego,
Cleveland, Mexico, Los Angeles, Montreal,
Sydney, Melbourne and more. The vibe of
the tour was electric. It featured jampacked days filled with lectures, tours, stories, acts of chesed and learning designed
to send the women on a rollercoaster of
emotions. “We cried a lot and laughed a lot
and bonded together as soul sisters, all belonging to a greater Jewish family,” explains Kim. “What struck a chord with me
were the incredible, world-class speakers
that were dishing out ‘pearls of Jewish wisdom’ on a daily basis. It also appeared that
all the Jewish women listening to these
speakers were relating to these lectures in
the same way that I was. Because, I think,