English Blog

2021 was Gevaldik!

Thursday, December 30, 2021 - 11:20 AM

If I asked you to define 2021 in a single word, what would you choose?

My inbox (and yours, too, I’m sure) is flooded with year-end reports from every organization I’ve ever interacted (or not interacted) with. Every news site is sending out lists of their top news stories for 2021; Google sent out a report of the most Googled subjects; Peloton sent me a video summarizing all my workouts; Google photos and Facebook are not to be undone.

But if you had to sum up your year in just one word, what would it be? Think carefully. In fact, I actually tried this out on Whatsapp with a handful of friends and their responses included: “ineffective,” “blessed,” “expressive,” passionate,” “horrible,” and “depressing.”

Another person responded, “doomed.” Which made me think of a Whatsapp group some friends of mine added me to this year, which they called, “Hopeless, we’re doomed.” And have you heard of “doom scrolling”? The term was searched more this year than ever before. When you’re surrounded by bad news, it’s tempting to go to either extreme—a) avoid all mention of it, or b) obsessively collect every detail. The latter now has a name—doom scrolling.

But the truth is, at the end of the day, we get to decide how we define 2021. It’s what we made of it.

When I think about my year, the word that comes to mind is “gevaldik.”

Gevaldik because there were 365 days in 2021, and every moment of every day was an opportunity to connect with G-d in the deepest sense. A chance to fulfill my mission in life. And that generates the happiest and most fulfilling moments. Everything else that happened was secondary; background noise.

Interestingly, the most listened to song in Israel this year, popular among religious and secular Jews alike, was “Sibat Hasibot” by Ishay Ribo, which is all about our deep and resounding faith in G-d. Yes, we Jews tend to argue, and yes, we’ve had a rough year including a war, many tragedies, and deaths, but at the end of the day what are we listening to across the country? A song that describes our unyielding belief in our Creator and His plan.

If you think deeply about your 2021, surely you too will discover that it was gevaldik.

And if I ask you to define how you think 2022 will go, you can choose that it, too, will be gevaldik!

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Uriel Vigler

Have You Tested?

Thursday, December 23, 2021 - 10:24 AM

If you’ve been out in the streets recently, you’re sure to have seen the endless lines that stretch all the way around the block (and further!) at every testing site in this city. Wait times are longer than at any other point during the past two years, as the Omicron variant sweeps through the country, infecting people at a rate far higher and quicker than anything we’ve seen.

Are you positive or negative? That is the question on everyone’s lips.

Want to travel? Test before you go, test when you arrive. Been exposed to someone? Test. Not sure if your kids can go back to school? Test. Think you might need to quarantine? Test. Have a headache, cough, cold, fever? Test, test, test, test.

It seems we are in an endless cycle of testing and retesting ourselves, but there must be something valuable—a deeper lesson—we can extract from this testing obsession.

Every day we are supposed to test ourselves. It’s called a “cheshbon hanefesh” - an accounting of the soul. In fact, it’s part of the extended Shema we say before bed every evening: “Master of the Universe, forgive me for my sins…” But when was the last time we stopped to actually contemplate those words?

When did we actually go through our day, and screen for spiritual viruses? Am I infected with “bad mood” or “chronic irritation” or “upset with the world”? I must test and get rid of it, since the Torah commands us to serve G-d with joy.

Do I have an ailment called, “don’t really like people with opposing views”? If so, I need to treat it so that tomorrow I can get back into the world and embrace my fellow Jews regardless of their opinions. Until I can manage that, I need to quarantine.

When you hop into bed every night, test yourself. Ponder: Am I inspired? Do I feel spiritually energized? Let me make sure tomorrow I will eat only kosher food, put on tefillin in the morning, and have kosher mezuzot installed on my doorposts.

Every day we need to plan how to do more mitzvot and be more spiritually connected than we were the day before.

And if we feel like we’ve failed the test, then let’s do some contact tracing.

Retrace your steps and find the person you shared your lousy mood with yesterday, and make sure this time they feel your warmth.

Retrace your steps and stop in at shul, if last time you walked right past.

Retrace your steps and make sure that the next time a mitzvah comes your way, you grab it!

The Omicron variant spreads 70 times faster than the others. So we need to up our game. We need to increase 70-fold in joy, mitzvot, and spirituality. We need 70 times more people lining up to pray in shul; 70 times more people banging on the doors of nonprofits asking to give charity.

Ask yourself: Are you positive? Are you happy? Do you feel inspired? Are you ready to go out and do mitzvot? If so, you can exit your quarantine. And when you do so, please infect everyone around you with your warmth, your smile, your laughter, and ask them to join you in doing a mitzvah and spreading joy.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Uriel Vigler

Manhattan NY

Sold out Gala with 500 people!

Thursday, December 16, 2021 - 11:07 PM

We recently held our annual gala, with a sold-out crowd of 500 people in person and hundreds more virtually. To put that in perspective, it’s akin to have 2,500 people B.C.E. (Before Covid Era).

Hardly any events of this scale are happening now, but thank G-d people came. And they had an exceptional time! It went beyond all our predictions—we had a larger turnout than anticipated and raised more money than we thought possible.

The logistics of arranging this year’s gala were unlike any other. Simple things like booking a hotel! Have you tried lately? Prices have skyrocketed. Many hotels shut down during Covid, and as tourists return to the city there just aren’t enough rooms to go around. Some hotels were quoting $1200/night!

Things that always went smoothly and quickly in the past, required superhuman effort this time. Like obtaining visas for our beloved soldiers. Two weeks before the gala we still weren’t sure if they would make it! And arranging their tour of the city required herculean effort.

Plenty of people told us no one would come because Sunday is the worst day for a large-scale event. And it was the 8th day of Chanukah when everyone wants to go to their family parties. Some people even bought tables they couldn’t fill. “What do we do?” they asked.

And then, just a week before the big day, the new variant from South Africa was announced. How’s that for timing! And we were suddenly flooded with calls. “Are we still on?” “Is the gala still happening?”

One of our guest celebrities canceled as soon as the new variant was announced. Oy vey! We were really relying on him!

And then we had to cancel an Airbnb we’d booked. If you’ve ever tried that, you’ll know how ironclad their cancellation policy is … I thought Covid would be an exception, but they are refusing to refund us any of the money at all. We may even need a lawyer.

And then, two days before the gala, more calls started to come in. “My child was exposed to someone…” “We have symptoms so we’re going to play it safe and stay home…” “We’re all in quarantine.” “We have to cancel, so sorry…” “We cannot attend, sorry.” Sorry, sorry, sorry. Well, we were sorry too!

But despite all the challenges—these and plenty more—we pulled off a most incredible and inspiring evening, with superstar singer Yaakov Shwekey, and stars such as Michael Aloni, Hadas Yaron, and Moran Rosenblatt. Our soldiers, the heroes of the evening, blew everyone away with their stories of courage and resilience.

Through all the obstacles we faced, we plowed forward, pushing ahead relentlessly. Ultimately, the evening was safe and the feedback we received made it all worthwhile. People left inspired, uplifted, feeling a strong sense of unity and purpose.

How did we do it? With deep trust in Hashem. Whenever things cropped up, or challenges seemed insurmountable, we kept Him in the forefront of our minds. Hashem is in charge. He is the boss, with full control. Nothing can change that. We prayed to him with full faith that things would work out, then sit back and let Him take the driver's seat.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Uriel Vigler