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Two Perfect Partners
Two Perfect Partners
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Celia Minkin
I was lucky enough to be teamed up with the perfect partner, Joanne. Her background in Judaism was extremely limited. She was married to someone who wasn't Jewish and who, along with their daughter, was a practicing Catholic. She struggled with how a loving G-d could have allowed the Holocaust, a subject we discussed repeatedly. We learned several sefarim and she asked piercing questions. She was so open to learning about Judaism, despite a lifestyle that could have caused her to be defensive. Her pintele Yid and Yiddishe neshama were always evident, as I regularly pointed out to her. We laughed together frequently and heartily. Imagine my surprise, when she eventually casually dropped the information that her husband's parents were Jews! After over 3 years of a beautiful and rewarding friendship with Joanne, she became ill and passed away. This was very shortly after Oct 7, 2023. Her daughter found my email and very considerately wrote me the following: "Hi Celia, I am Joanne’s daughter and I am writing to you to inform you of her passing. She cherished the relationship the two of you built, and you were one of the only people she contacted in her final days. She kept up to date on the current situation in Israel and you and your safety were in her thoughts. Be safe and be well. " Joanne frequently expressed concern regarding the end of life, as she was not young. A few months after her passing, I was taken aback when I found the final passage we had learned together, marked by a bookmark, in Gateway to Happiness. "The most feared event in a person's life is death. But we have the ability to transform our death into the greatest act we will perform in our entire life. We can perceive death as our total submission to the will of the Almighty and find tremendous spiritual elevation. (Alai Shur). " When I informed Partners in Torah of the passing of my beloved partner, Joanne. I told Sharona "I don't know how I will ever again find such a perfect partner for me. I'll contact you again soon about obtaining a new partner." It seems that HaShem Himself partnered with Partners in Torah to find me yet again, the nearly impossible: a thoroughly delightful well-matched partner! Lee Schwimmer and I have developed a beautiful friendship over the past year. She is dedicated to learning and growing. She's smart and fun and we just have a wonderful time together while we learn. She teases me that I am constantly saying "that's a good question". Lee and her husband Dan, a tireless warrior for Israel, came to Israel this past summer for a lengthy visit in order to volunteer their time. My husband Pesach and I were lucky enough to meet Lee and Dan in Jerusalem, and I think this picture speaks a thousand words. The first image is Joanne, ע''ה Read moreWe just clicked
We just clicked
Linda Baronkatz
Over the past year, Beth and I have studied and learned a lot of Torah from one another. While I had other partners, none except Beth could use zoom. The moment we met on zoom we clicked. Beth was more into reading books that had to do with Torah and Shabbat. The books I liked to read had to do with growth, character, bitachon, emunah. We started to combine the books together and there was a lot that had to do with each of them. Beth especially showed me and read books on the Yomim Tovim by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. He turned out to be very good and interesting. I introduced her to a book It's All In Your Mind by Sara Yosef. Beth and I hope to get together one day. We have talked about meeting in Kew Garden Hills. I hope we can continue to learn with one another. Thanks Partners in Torah for putting us together. Read moreShe never gave up on me
She never gave up on me
Galya.S
I am BT and realized shortly after sending all my children to Jewish day schools that I was woefully uneducated. No one had ever taught me how to daven, the order, the special add-ins or the explanations of certain prayers. As hard as I tried, I could not find anyone willing to go back to 1st grade with me so to speak. I davened for 2 years before an email from Partners in Torah appeared in my inbox. I immediately filled out the form, and excitedly waited to be partnered with a chavrusa. However, the blessing came with a challenge: I live in America and my chavrusa lives in Australia. KH we both have a household to run and a gaggle of kids between us. After emailing for a few weeks we found a time that could work for the both of us. But after a month we still couldn't adjust to the time difference and make things work. Then there was winter break, Chanukah, Shavous, summer vacation. And before we knew it, nearly half a year had passed! I was so sad. Did Hashem really send me a chavrusa just to take her away? But no, my wonderful chavrusa never gave up on me. Finally, after nearly a year, we had our first session. I am so grateful to Breindy for never giving up on me, for patiently listening to me mispronounce words and learn Rashis for the first time. I also want to express hakaros hatov to Partners in Torah for bringing us together! Read moreUnexpected News
Unexpected News
Quenton Little
When I had to fly home to see my dying great grandmother, who I am very close to and is a huge part of my life even today, in May of 2018, I had no idea that she would tell her whole family that she was in actuality a Ukrainian Jew who left Ukraine in 1936. She had kept her heritage a secret from all of us, because life was easier for non-Jewish people. In Ukraine, she and her sister had changed their names, adopted Christian faith practices in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, had a priest in their hometown of Berezhany forge church documents for them, and then had departed for Canada. She came from a large Jewish family of 110 people: parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents and many cousins. They all perished in the Holocaust leaving her and her sister as the only survivors. I am an ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, and I am currently serving as a military chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces. With this new knowledge of our family and realizing that I am Jewish on my mother’s side, I began to process and wonder what this might mean for me. I am very fortunate that my wife and our two children, ages 4 and 1, have been so supportive of this newfound information. As March of 2020 came with the beginning of a massive world shut down, an advertisement for Partners in Torah popped up on my Facebook page. So, naturally out of curiosity I explored the program online and applied for a partner. I was sent several options, and my partner, Ely, happened to be around my age, married with four kids, living in Brooklyn NY. Once we connected, it was as if we had been friends our entire lives. We joke that we are probably brothers who were separated at birth. Our newfound brotherhood has emerged in amazing conversations about Jewish faith, family life, studying Torah together, and how these many facets come together to make this amazingly rich life that Jewish culture is based on. One Chanukah was particularly meaningful, thanks to my partner. That year, we did not celebrate Advent like we had in the past leading up to Christmas, but instead, we celebrated our very first Hannukah with this phenomenal Hannukah care package that my partner and his family sent us. We had a menorah, dreidels, and lovely gifts that we all used. Included was a Jewish cookbook that we made good use of over the holidays. We sent a Canadian themed Hannukah care package that included kippahs with a maple leaf on the top (I had one made for myself too), maple leaf cookies, and maple leaf earrings for my partner's wife and two daughters. I never had any inclination that Partners in Torah, along with my partner, would have such a profound impact on my life. Am I being educated on and embracing my newfound Jewish heritage and faith more? Definitely! And my partner has provided this positive welcoming environment for me to do so. I will always sing the praises of Partners in Torah; I recommend it to others any chance I get. I can’t express how grateful I am to gain such an amazing, friend, brother and educator as my partner. Read moreHealing the Soul
Healing the Soul
Tziporah.J
“Mom, why don’t you try Partners in Torah? They’ll match you with someone for one-on-one mentoring in learning Judaism, at your beginner level,” suggested my daughter Yael in March 2020. When Partners in Torah connected with me, I was newly diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. The average length of survival was three years… “I feel this is a wake-up call to shift my negative attitudes and behaviors,” I told my partner, Esther. “Everything in life is a gift, a chance for growth. The Torah studies will help you in every area of life,” she replied. I had little energy to study. So Esther gave me a simple first assignment: say the prayer “Asher Yatzer,” each time after I used the toilet. “Thank you, G-d, there are no blockages or ruptures in any of my organs of excretion. Blessed are you, who heals all flesh wondrously.” Since the chemo caused frequent use of the toilet, I was saying this prayer six or more times a day. It reduced my terror to be reminded that G-d was in charge, not cancer, and that much of my body was still working well. After a month, Esther suggested: “Can you try saying Modeh Ani, the prayer upon arising? And Shema, the prayer before we go to bed...” Esther explained the point of our many prayers was to keep ourselves in a state of gratitude and to always remember everything comes from G-d. We’d done this at the Veterans’ Hospital, where I’d worked with brain injury patients. Having them count all they were grateful for was the best way to help their injured brains shift out of anger or fear. Now Esther was helping me do that in the face of my own challenge. Twice a week, we discussed the lessons contained in that week’s Torah portion, and then we moved to other books on proper speech as well as podcasts. I truly felt that I was growing. While my greatest fear had been spending the short time I had left in pandemic isolation, I began to view the combination of a pandemic and cancer as the crucible I needed to devote myself to learning about the precious gift of my birthright. “Mom, you sound like a different person!” said Yael over the phone from her college dorm. I’d made more personal progress in six months with Esther, than in a lifetime of attempts at self-improvement. Each day I took care of my body–chemo, healthy food, acupuncture, vitamins–but the center of my life was getting closer to G-d through study, prayer and mitzvot. As my soul expanded, my body did its own healing. Cancer retreated, the blood markers returning to normal. “This is wonderful!” said my doctor, “Let’s hope you can live a normal lifespan." But I was no longer as focused on the length of my life as much as its quality. Thanks to studying with Esther, I understood a good life was always long enough. Read moreSo grateful we didn't reschedule
So grateful we didn't reschedule
Elizabeth.S
This week I found myself sobbing on the phone to a woman I barely knew. Oh, and did I mention that she was crying too? Wait, let me back up the story and start from the beginning. But you might want to hold onto your socks. I always feel better when I’m investing in my spiritual growth, but for the past several years, that’s taken a backseat to motherhood, work, and the chaos of life. On most days, I barely find time to take a shower, let alone open an inspiring book. But my life was about to change when I received an email asking me to participate in an “Influencers Virtual Challah Bake” with Partners In Torah. I felt it would be a very uplifting evening in these uncertain times. It was an opportunity to give my Instagram followers a chance to join together with hundreds of women around the world as a community for collective inspiration. To my surprise, I was so moved by the event that I took the plunge and signed up for the three week Shabbos learning program. This gave me the privilege to learn weekly with Partners in Torah’s Senior Educator, Adina Stilerman. Adina and I are very different women on the surface, with different backgrounds, different levels of religious observance, and very different interests. However, from our first call, Adina and I realized how much more in common we had beneath our outer shells. We are both working mamas with strong Jewish values and an incredibly passionate (sometimes maybe a little too passionate) approach to life. But, I had no idea that I was about to discover that we also shared a secret about a tiny corner of the earth—a place that changed us both forever…. When Adina called me for our second learning session, I was in the middle of a death-defying balancing act, with my right hand comforting my screaming 6-week-old baby, and my left hand scrambling to prepare his bottle, all whilst calling (read: shouting) instructions into the next room to my panicking 8-year-old daughter on how to get back onto her Zoom class. Are you picturing the mayhem? When I heard the phone ring, I thought to myself, “Oh no, that must be Adina! Not now! I don’t have time to study Torah right now! Why did I even sign up for this??” I ran and picked up the phone just before it went to voicemail, so I could tell her we needed to reschedule—not that there’s ever a better time with my current juggling act. Adina immediately sensed my frantic energy and said, “Elizabeth, is everything okay?” I started to list off my endless parade of stressors and was about to propose a reschedule when she asked me if she could tell me a story. “Um, sure,” I blurted out, figuring I could put her on speakerphone as I fed the baby and I would do my best to pay attention. Now, this is the part of the story that makes me so grateful that I didn’t reschedule on that day. She opened up to me, relating that when she found out that she was expecting her fifth child, she was still grieving the recent loss of her mother. At that moment in time, she couldn’t imagine being responsible for another baby. In addition, the news came just before she was scheduled to lead a Holocaust education trip to Poland. She just didn’t know how she would hold it together. For the first few days in Poland, she maintained a strong facade for the benefit of the group, but inside, she was miserable and feeling sorry for herself. Physically, she struggled with the long bus rides, and emotionally she was somewhat dispirited about the baby within. All she wanted was to go home. One morning, the tour guide came up to her on the bus and informed her that he had just added in a last-minute stop on their itinerary and asked her if she could speak there: The Children’s Forest in Zbylitowska Góra. Adina had been to Poland several times already but she had never visited that site. In fact, she was slightly annoyed that he had added it in without first getting her approval. Well, too late now! They were going to be there in 5 minutes, so she quickly Googled the place to help her prepare something to say. When the Wikipedia page popped up, her eyes skimmed the words and her heart stopped… What she read can only be described as a horror of the unimaginable kind. It was a heart-wrenching account of the massacre of innocent, helpless children. She read the date…June 11, 1942… the number 800 popped out at her….Jewish little children from an orphanage…marched from the nearby Tarnow ghetto…thrown in a pit…the German’s opened fired…tossed hand grenades… until the last screams were silenced…she closed the screen. She couldn’t read anymore. Adina got off the bus and walked slowly through the forest, well behind the group, toward the mass grave. Her heart was still racing but now her mind was running its own marathon. She thought about her four little ones at home, and of course the one on the way that she just didn’t have the perspective to appreciate…until now. By the time she reached the clearing, she was so overcome with emotion, she couldn’t even open her mouth to speak. She just wept. The group wept along with her. As she breathed in the air where these 800 pure young souls took their last breaths on earth, her mindset shifted completely. She was overwhelmed by an enormous surge of gratitude and purpose. She thought about the mothers of those children who would’ve given anything to save their precious babies, and her entire outlook on her impending blessing changed. The worry and anxiety she once felt no longer carried the same weight. She vowed to never forget to appreciate the gift she was granted – to be a mother. She turned upwards and with tears streaming down her face and overwhelming gratitude in her heart whispered, “G-d, thank you for giving me the privilege to bring another pure soul into the world.” Months later, G-d gifted Adina with a beautiful baby girl. That child carries her mother’s name and turned out to be the biggest comfort for her loss…” She stopped talking for a minute. “Elizabeth?” I couldn’t speak. “Elizabeth, are you there?”As Adina told me her story, a chill ran up my spine and I began to break down in tears. I could not believe what I was hearing. You see, I had had my own pivotal moment in that exact same place halfway across the world, deep within the Polish forest of Zbylitowska Góra!! “Adina, you’re not going to believe this.” I took her back to May of 2018, when I went to Poland on a whim. It had been a longtime dream of mine to take this intense journey, but like Adina, the timing was anything but logical. I had just suffered a second ectopic pregnancy and was recovering from emergency surgery to remove my ruptured fallopian tube. I was a bit of a mess both physically and emotionally. I remember feeling fear as the question of having children in the future hung in the air. And of course, there was anger towards G-d for putting me through this. My brother-in-law called me: “Lizzy, I just found this trip to Poland over Memorial Day weekend. We should sign up!” I told him I could absolutely not do that right now considering my emotional state, my two young daughters, and my husband’s insane work schedule. Mostly, I felt fragile and was experiencing situational depression. I could only imagine that a week of Holocaust history would pull me even further down my spiral of negativity. But after I hung up with him, the thought of going kept tugging at my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, nor talking about it for that matter! Finally, my husband Ira said to me, “Just go on the dang trip!! We’ll figure out how to handle everything here!” I booked it immediately before I lost the courage, and I don’t think I slept a peaceful night until the day we left. I was so unbelievably nervous!! From the moment we landed in Warsaw, and as we made our way through Poland, I felt a stronger connection to my Jewish identity than ever before. Each site we visited was like a call to action to bring forth the voices which could no longer speak for themselves. But as I related to Adina, it was the morning of our third day in Poland that was the pinnacle of the trip for me. The rabbi leading our trip came over to me on the bus and asked me, just as she was asked if I would be willing to speak at the place to which we were headed. I did not yet know that we were going to the Children’s Forest nor did I know anything about what had happened there. He said it may be the hardest moment of the trip for many of us and felt that because I was a mom of young children, I could help bring the significance of this spot to life. When we got there, he handed me a paper to read. It was a letter written by a young mother to her one-year-old daughter. The woman was sending her daughter away into hiding in order to save her life, as she knew that she herself would likely be sent to a death camp very soon. I read the letter and could barely get through it. She conveyed on that paper the torture of being torn from her baby, of the thought of never seeing her again. It was so real, so raw. Every member of our group was crying. I sat down on a tree trunk right next to the blue-painted fence of this mass grave, where 800 innocent children had been robbed of their lives, and I wept. The group gathered to say some prayers and comfort one another, but I couldn’t move from my tree trunk. I felt an overwhelming desire to put my newfound feelings into words. I pulled out my phone and typed a letter to my daughter back at home. “I didn’t know what it meant to purely love until I became your mother. I had no expectations for how those first moments would feel with you in my arms, but as I think of your beautiful faces now, I know I am fulfilling a special purpose. I am perpetuating our people who have endured persecution, expulsion, terrorism, and murder, all the while miraculously maintaining that unique identity that was the cause of the oppression. For this purpose, I feel incredibly lucky.” My time spent in the forest shifted my whole outlook on my critical role as a mother. Bringing Jewish children into the world is not simply about perpetuating numbers. It’s about kindling the Jewish souls in my charge. And so, dear readers, that’s how I found myself sobbing on the phone together with a woman I barely knew. Yes, we had just met, but at that moment I felt that we were intimately connected because of our unique shared experience. I also feel that it is not a coincidence that the material we received from the Shabbos Learning Program this week on Havdalah was about the fleeting nature of inspiration. We read that moments of clarity are like sparks. Most of the time they are only bold and bright for a brief time before they are gone and we feel ourselves slip back into the darkness of apathy and misdirection. But if kindled properly, like the Havdalah candle, they can turn into a blazing fire that lights up that darkness. It can be used as a memory one can tap into in time of need. I’m so grateful that I didn’t have a chance to reschedule my learning session with my Partner in Torah. Read moreA life-enriching friend
A life-enriching friend
Renee Chernin
I can’t believe it has been 16 years since Amy and I have been partners. I think we connected right away. We share a love of history and went through Ken Spiro’s course on aish.com early in our learning together. Amy is open to many Jewish topics and I have been changed by the breadth of subjects we have read together. Of course, we also spend time shmoozing! We have shared difficult and stressful times and celebrated each other’s successes. I admire Amy’s commitment to Judaism and how she cultivates Jewish thought and tradition in her life. I think because of this, she has helped me not to take my Judaism for granted. We've also visited one another in person, despite the fact that we live oceans apart. Amy and her daughter are as precious as family to me. Thank you Partners in Torah for making our match and giving me a life enriching friend. Read moreThe most thoughtful gift
The most thoughtful gift
Baila Karfunkel
My partner Ellen and I have been learning for 11 years. About 5 years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo surgery. During that time, I faced a slow and grueling recovery. While many friends sent flowers, or contributed meals to our family meal train, Ellen's gift struck me as the most thoughtful. She knew what a reader I am, and paid for a subscription to Audible so that I could listen to books during my recovery. Not only did Ellen send something, but her gift showed that she knew me so well. It was exactly what I needed. Ellen is a blessing in my life, and I hope that everyone will be able to develop the type of friendship that we have through our weekly learning. Read moreAn unexpected visitor