One of the most important things to remember about Shabbat is that it is an undeserved gift of unfathomable worth.

The angels actually protested to Hashem against giving us Shabbat.

They said we wouldn't appreciate it properly.

And for the majority of our people today, the angels have unfortunately been proven right.

But there is still the priceless minority who DO appreciate Shabbat — and want to appreciate it even more!

There is a lot of work entailed for Shabbat. Some of it is grunge work. If you can afford it, you can pay someone else to do it for you.

But if you can't?

In Parshat Vayakhel - Building the Shabbos Home, Rav Avigdor Miller emphasizes that it's similar to a diamond merchant who is seen carefully sweeping the dust off the floor under his work table.

Why is he doing such menial work and doing so with such care?

"This is diamond dust!" says the sweeping diamond merchant. “And therefore it’s worth my while to sit on my knees and collect dust that comes from diamonds.” 

​Here's one of the amazing (yet imperceptible to most people) events that occurs on Shabbat:

We hear about the concept of Beresheit—In the beginning—so much, that we don't think more deeply about the real meaning of it.

"The Universe was created ex nihilo!" 

"There was absolutely nothing before Hashem created the Universe!"

How many times have you heard all that?

Yet was does that really mean?

Rav Avigdor Miller explains:

The human mind can't really imagine "nothing."

When completely blind people are asked, "What do you see? Do you see darkness? Black?"

"No," they answer. "I see nothing. Not even black."

That's interesting because seeing people often describe blind people as living in darkness, but the truth is, they don't because they don't perceive even darkness.

To a sighted person, blind people live in visual darkness. But that's not how a blind-from-birth person perceives it. They simply do not see.

So could a blind person imagine "nothing"?

Visually, perhaps.

But "nothing" includes an absences of sound, scent, and everything else.

​We just cannot imagine.

This week's dvar Torah is bursting with all sorts of necessary and luscious insights:

• how to REALLY keep Shabbat
• Hashem's "Imagination" & how it works
• how the science of matter has changed
• how dvar Hashem can be both energy & material
• how anger, anxiety, and excitement can harm one's physical eyes
• the effect of the weekday on one's mental & spiritual eyesight and how Shabbat heals this effect
• why saying Vayichulu last Shabbat can make the coming erev Shabbat more peaceful
• how Vayichulu is like a mini-Yom Kippur every week
• ​why being a frum cow is better than being a wicked cow, but how to avoid being a frum cow anyway

​Parshat Vayakhel - Building the Shabbos Home

​Enjoy!

(All quotes used with permission from Toras Avigdor.)

Most of us are familiar with the idea that Shabbat symbolizes the Word to Come while Erev Shabbat symbolizes This World.
 
As the children’s song goes:
“Mi sheh lo tarach b’Erev Shabbat—mah yochal? Mah yochal b’Shabbat?”
“He who didn’t toil during the eve of Shabbat—what will he eat? What will he eat on Shabbat?”
 
Of course, it’s not originally a children’s song.
 
Talmud Avodah Zarah 3a states: “He who didn’t toil during the eve of Shabbat—from where shall he eat on Shabbat?”

(And the phrase prior to that states: “Mi sheh tarach b’Erev Shabbat yochal b’Shabbat—He who toiled during the eve of Shabbat will eat on Shabbat”—it’s a promise.)
 
The well-known symbolism is the promise that whoever toils in This World to prepare for the World to Come will enjoy the fruits of that toil in the World to Come.
 
(Interestingly, it promises this to whomever tarach—toiled—and not to whoever was successful. It sounds as if you struggle as much as you can to do the work, then you’ll reap the rewards. Meaning, you will be rewarded for your efforts and not for your outcome. Nice!) 

So is there something we can learn from our Erev Shabbat preparations that can help us live our life better in This World so as to enable a better place in the World to Come?
 
Yes.
​
To figure this out, you first need to write up a list of whatever you do (or should be doing) to prepare for Shabbat and then see how it correlates to what you can do to prepare for the Ultimate Time of Rest: Olam Haba.

​For example, many people make at least 1 list on Erev Shabbat—a shopping list.
 
Others also keep a check-off list on their fridge to make sure they cover all the tasks necessary before Shabbat (i.e., set the Shabbat timer, turn off the fridge light, plug in the heating plate, etc.).
 
People may have a list of phone calls to wish family members “a Good Shabbos!”
 
And still others make up a schedule. Their to-do list includes the times at which they need to carry out all these tasks.
 
So that could be something you could incorporate into your daily life right now.

​Personally, I feel suffocated by schedules, but a general list of what I’d like to accomplish during the day (in whatever order or at whatever time I wish) helps me accomplish more during the day. It also helps me to see where I’m holding. And checking off whatever I’ve already done is gratifying.
 
It can also show me if I’m overwhelming myself by chomping off more than I can possibly chew and need to scale back or switch things around.
 
A list also helps you keep your eye on your goal. You’re less likely to waste time when you see that you still have a couple more things on your list to complete before bedtime.
 
And because we are focusing on Olam Haba, this list refers to spiritual accomplishments or avodah you’d like to tackle. (Although you could make a list of everything all together. For example, if you plan to daven Mincha before an early shkiah, it’s important to know that you also need to run the carpool that day, then take Malki to her class Shabbaton—meaning, you need to know that you need to daven Mincha as early as possible on that day if you want to daven it at all.)
 
Frankly, I don’t make a list every day. But when I do, it’s usually more effective than just cruising along and hoping I’ll get around to doing whatever I need to.

(Those bold-faced caps are for me, not for you, dear reader. ;-)
 
Whether that means getting up early in the morning, or doing as much as you can on the weekdays leading up to Shabbat, you can’t possibly have a nice relaxed early candle-lighting & a clean home with plenty of delicious food if you only start preparing 2 hours before hadlakat neirot.
 
A last-minute Erev Shabbat tends to usher in a Shabbat with lots of yelling and panicking, followed by complaints throughout Shabbat:

• “Where’s my Shabbat shirt—what do you mean it’s still in the laundry?”
• “Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to plug in the blech! Maybe the neighbors have room on theirs for our pots?”
• “Hey, the light’s still on in the fridge—we can’t close the door!”
• “It’s so depressing to see 2 sinks full of dishes waiting to be washed after Shabbat—and we haven’t even had our first meal yet!”
• “I hate going to shul in dusty muddy shoes, but I didn’t have time to polish them before Shabbat.”
• “I’m hungry—what do you mean there isn’t anything else to eat?”

 
The big secret is that most of us have already suffered through a Shabbat like that already, whether due to Erev Shabbat laziness or unavoidable emergencies.

But barring unforeseen wrenches thrown our way, many of us know what a rushed, disorganized Erev Shabbat is like and we definitely DON’T want our Eternal World blemished with the spiritual equivalent of “I can’t believe I forgot to plug in the blech!”

Chazal says that the yetzer hara dances around a Jewish home on Erev Shabbat, making it very challenging to avoid angry exchanges.

​Our yetzer hara wants us to damage not only our regular soul, but also to damage also the neshamah yeteirah—the extra soul we receive on Shabbat.



(For more, please see: Preserving Your Soul from Anger Erev Shabbat.)

So it’s important to try as hard as we can to cultivate an atmosphere of emuna on Erev Shabbat.
 
However, if you have ever gotten snappish or shrieky Erev Shabbat, you probably noticed that you later forgot about whatever it was that upset you so much not long after hadlakat neirot.
 
Whatever you were so stressed about just disappeared. You might even wonder why you were so freaked out about it in the first place?
 
Or the opposite happens: You remember it only too well. You go into Shabbat with a crummy feeling, like “Why can’t I ever get this right? Why am I such an awful parent/spouse/Jew?”
 
Or just feeling generally frustrated or resentful or like a failure.
 
Likewise, it’s very important to avoid anger in This World. (Yet again, I am speaking to myself.) Everything comes from Hashem and there’s no need for anger because He is running things and everything He does is for our own good—even if it doesn’t feel like that at all.
 
I can’t help thinking that when we finally make the transition (after 120 years, b’ezrat Hashem) to the Afterlife, we’re also going to either go in forgetting about what was so infuriating in This World and wondering why we were so upset in the first place?

Or we might go in feeling bad that we have so many sins of anger on our account.

​“Why didn’t I take the yissurim b’simcha?” we might ask ourselves. “Why didn’t I try harder to respond to my ordeals with joy and gratitude? After all Gemara Taanit 8a promises that every person who rejoices in his yissurim brings salvation to the world. So why couldn’t I have tried a little harder?”
 
In the World of Truth, everything is so clear. We’re finally shown the reason for everything.
 
And we might feel there like how we feel here in the transition from Erev Shabbat to Shabbat—depending on how our Erev Shabbat went.

​But we don’t want to arrive at Olam Haba full of regret or wondering why we were so upset in the first place.

​I think this next one isn’t as well known, but it’s important to do teshuvah Erev Shabbat.
 
Yeah, it’s important to go into Shabbat as sin-free as possible.
 
In his chapter called Teshuvah, the Pele Yoetz explains that if a person does not repent of his sins the day he committed them, then he should at least do so on the Friday of that week “because it is also a time of teshuvah.”
 
The Pele Yoetz stresses that thoughts of teshuvah on Erev Shabbat enable one to say Kiddush on Leil Shabbat. Why? The Kiddush is a form of testimony (eidut) and a wicked man is disqualified from testifying.
 
On a more positive note, doing teshuvah on Erev Shabbat enables a Jew to merit the addition of nefesh-ruach-neshamah (the 3 levels of soul) and the illumination of holiness on Shabbat (he’arat kedushat Shabbat). He continues:

If you think about it, this is actually a thrilling opportunity.

The Pele Yoetz means that by doing teshuvah (admitting your sins, regretting/making amends for them, and then accepting upon yourself to distance yourself from them), you will merit an especially enhanced soul for Shabbat, in addition to an especially enhanced light of holiness on Shabbat itself.

(As far as I know, all Jews receive an extra neshamah for Shabbat, but apparently, the quality and loftiness of your particular neshamah yeteirah depends on your behavior prior to its entry.)

In turn, the splendor (ziv) derived from the especially enhanced light (he’arah) will gush forth into the following week, enabling you to do even more teshuvah and perfect your avodah to Hashem, thereby making you even more fabulous than you already are.
 
So the spiritual quality and success of your week actually depends a lot on what you did Erev Shabbat of the week before.
 
Sure, this might sound a bit discouraging if you usually fall on your face Erev Shabbat.

​On the other hand, if you’ve been stuck emotionally or spiritually during the week, you can try your best to use this coming Erev Shabbat as a time of teshuvah and anger-management to catapult you into a different state for that Shabbat and the following week.
 
As always, we don’t seek perfection because only Hashem is Perfect.
 
If you only manage teshuvah on 1 thing Erev Shabbat, then that’s still really good.

Much, much better than nothing at all.
 
In addition, the Pele Yoetz advises:

Women don’t go to the mikveh Erev Shabbat, but if a woman can manage to talk to Hashem at all and seek any forgiveness, then that is very good.

​Furthermore, as is well-known, the preparations women invest in Erev Shabbat in honor of Shabbat--likhvod Shabbat—provide wonderful merit for her and for all of Am Yisrael.

​Refraining from anger during these preparations is also a wonderful atonement.

​Also, it’s perfectly normal that the first time you try something, you stumble & bumble around in it simply because you don’t quite know what you’re doing (yet). 

​Kol hahatchalot kashot—all the beginnings are difficult; that’s the spiritual reality. Just get up and try again. Really, that’s how it goes. It’s so normal.
 
So these are just a few examples of what you can learn from your Erev Shabbat to apply to your Olam Hazeh. And we share many similar aspects of Erev Shabbat (i.e. the need to start early, prepare food, etc.), individual situations vary.

For example, the Erev Shabbat of a single person is different than the Erev Shabbat of a person with 4 kids under the age of 3, which is different than the Erev Shabbat of a widow who spends a different Shabbat every week with one of her 10 married children.

And so on.

So you can make your personal list of what you do (or should be doing) on Erev Shabbat, then see how you can apply those lessons and insights to your life in This World.

May we all merit a World sheh kulo tov—that is entirely good.

For anyone who's interested in the Kinyan Eretz Yisrael project that enables you to fulfill 28 mitzvot connected to Eretz Yisrael (even if you live outside of Eretz Yisrael), they have a 1+1 TuB'Shvat Special going until 15 Shevat/January 21:

Everyone who leases a plot of wheat and grapes for only US$260 (for 1 year) will get another plot entirely for FREE to give away.

For more information, please click this link:
Kinyan Eretz Yisrael 1+1 TuB'Shvat Special

(And yes, that's an affiliate link at no extra cost to you.)

May we all merit a smooth and fulfilling journey toward yishuv Eretz Yisrael.

While everyone knows that Yom Kippur is the big time of atonement and forgiveness (and asking forgiveness after combing through your deeds and motivations, i.e cheshbon hanefesh), many people don't realize that Chanukah also possesses tremendous power for teshuvah and forgiveness.

During the times of the Beit Hamikdash, the Jewish people benefited from the twice-a-day sacrifices that atoned for their sins.

(At first glance, this sounds superficial, but the Kli Yakar detailed how this worked in Parshat Tzav.)

In Words of Faith, Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender stresses that the Jewish soul cannot bear the weight of sin for even a day. Why?

Because the Jewish soul is so ethereal, subtle, delicate, and sacred, explains Rav Bender.

This why a daily cheshbon hanefesh is so essential -- and why it's so essential to confess your sin to Hashem even a moment after you just transgressed whatever you transgressed. (Even though doing so feels really weird. But it's genuinely helpful and the right thing to do.)

Within the Beit Hamikdash, Jews had the Chanukat Habayit ceremony -- Dedication of the House (i.e., the Temple).

So what can we do nowadays with no Beit Hamikdash & no Chanukat Habayit?

Cry out to Hashem: "Slach na -- please forgive!!!"

Rav Bender quotes Rebbe Nachman from Likutei Moharan II:2

Furthermore, there is also a hint regarding the month of Kislev (the Hebrew month of Chanukah):
"Vayar Hashem ki sar lirot" (Shemot 3:4)
Hashem saw that he turned to look: He gazed to see what would be at the time of Galut (Exile), the time of "sar"-- rage.

(He explains that sar can also mean "storm" -- and as far as I know "storm" is spelled with an ayin.)

But anyway:
​
V,K,S,L...Kislev!

​Rebbe Nachman said that Moshe Rabbeinu merited knowing the secret of Chanukah (even though the events of Chanukah took place centuries after Moshe Rabbeinu's passing) by pleading to Hashem, "Please forgive the people's sin..." (Bamidbar 14:19):

סְלַח־נָ֗א לַֽעֲוֹ֛ן הָעָ֥ם הַזֶּ֖ה כְּגֹ֣דֶל חַסְדֶּ֑ךָ וְכַֽאֲשֶׁ֤ר נָשָׂ֨אתָה֙ לָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה מִמִּצְרַ֖יִם וְעַד־הֵֽנָּה

"Please forgive the iniquity of this nation in accordance with your abounding kindness, as You have borne this people from Egypt until now."

...hazeh k'godel chasdecha v'ka'asher nasata..."

H,K,CH,V,N...Chanukah!

And we see from the above that this is a definite koach double-wrapped within Chanukah, which exists within Kislev, as hinted in the Torah.

Rav Bender states (Words of Faith, Vol. II, pg. 450):

And on page 456, he assures us:

So this Chanukah, it's very important to take the time to cry out to Hashem:
"SLACH NA -- PLEASE FORGIVE!!!"

And you'll bring down blessing upon yourself and upon the Jewish people with a power that lasts throughout the entire year.

The time between Yom Kippur and Hoshanah Rabbah presents the opportunity to get in your last bit of teshuvah to sweeten your verdict for the coming year.

I've found that Hashem throws a couple of trials at people during this time, often a watered-down version of trials they've previously failed.

If you're aware (and I wasn't until the past several years), you can identify a trial during this time period as a repeat of a challenge you've failed before.

So if you can identify it, you can also assume that whatever the trial is, it'll likely end with the end of Sukkot (no promises, though).

Therefore, if your usual response to that particular trial is, for example, an outburst of lashon hara or of raging temper, a drink or a sedative (legal or not), sarcasm, secular music or movies, scarfing down fat-laden carbs, or anything else that indulges subpar behavior, then this is your last chance to get it right.

Or to at least get it less wrong.

I've been going through it myself now and it has been up-and-down.

Sometimes, you don't even know what the better behavior is. How EXACTLY are you supposed to handle it?

Saying, "Thanks, Hashem" or "Gam zu l'tovah -- this too is for the best" is always a good fallback position, even when it feels like that's not enough.

So I've lost some, but also won some.

And that's how it goes.

For tzaddikim, it's different. They've done their work & now they're the Holy Winners.

But for the rest of us, it entails falling to the ground with a thud, then struggle to get back on your feet again.

So as long as you're not letting yourself remain sprawled face-down in the dust, then you're probably doing all right -- even if you feel like you aren't.

May we all merit a sweetening of the final verdict!

My kids have been building the sukkah by themselves for the past few years now (because my husband both learns full-time & is also the main breadwinner -- way to go, Hubby!).

This year, we replaced last year's plain white cloth (ruined by last year's heavy rains & disintegrated sukkah decorations) with decorated plastic wall covering and we're quite enjoying the pseudo-palace look.

Gosh, look at how nice it all sounds: "My kids built the sukkah all by themselves" -- ooh, sounds like some kind of idyllic barn-raising party, eh?

Well, the truth is that one child in particular is very into it and galvanizes his sibs into helping (which they do partly out of fun and partly out of a sense of duty that the entire task shouldn't fall on just one sibling). Then another child decided to run off with a friend at a critical sukkah-constructing moment, promising to be back in an hour but returned after 2 hours, at which point it was too late to continue. (As is often true with your average happy-go-lucky type, he was shocked that his spontaneous detour into something more exciting caused so much inconvenience.)

After disgruntlement expressed by some and a sincere apology on his part, the sukkah-building continued the next day. The happy-go-lucky child and the galvanizer then eagerly invested time and energy in decorating the sukkah. Then my husband, who has a fondness for interior design, put the final touches on the schach hangings.

​And there you have it.

So at their request (particularly the one who invested so much effort in the whole process from humble beginning to glorious end), here is a photo of our sukkah:

One of the best parts about it is that the kids who chose the pictures made sure to choose rabbis representing different groups.

So you have the late Lubavitcher Rebbe with the Baba Sali and with Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Rav Ovadia Yosef, and Rav Chaim Shlomo Leibovitch of Ponovezh Yeshivah, plus the Chafetz Chaim (on the other side of the sukkah) and more.

I actually don't think it's so great to show off your family or home too much online or anywhere else, but one kid in particular really wanted me to post his hard work on the blog, so here it is.

In the Rav Moshe Chaim Luzatto's Derech Hashem, he describes the act of shaking the lulav (or "pumping" it, according to Sefardi minhag -- it's all the same in Hebrew: "mina'ane'ah") has the power to inspire fear and dread in the hearts of the haters of Am Yisrael.

(To this, one of my teenagers quipped, "What a good feeling to know that when I was mina'ane'ah the lulav, some ISIS terrorist somewhere started shaking in his boots." Heh-heh. Exactly.)

Combined with hakafot (marching in a circle at shul with the lulav), this has the power to subjugate our enemies to the point that they want to serve Am Yisrael. 

(Therefore, I asked my male family members to please engage in some really heartfelt hakafot because I'm overwhelmed by all my responsibilities and could really use a knock on the door from a miraculously reformed Hamas terrorista wishing to help me out.)

Most religious Jews have read Derech Hashem (as have I) and are familiar with this concept, but I'd forgotten about it and enjoyed being reminded.

(Also goes to show the much-lauded importance in the frum world of reviewing the writings of our holy Sages. You get something new each time.)

It's a deceptively simple mitzvah with tremendous beneficial power.

May everyone have a chag sameach and a gut yantiv!

May this Sukkot see revealed protection and joy for Am Yisrael.

(BTW, if you haven't tried it yourself, but always wondered...the bark of an etrog tree really does taste like an etrog minus the juiciness.)

​Here's a sukkah gallery:

Dancing at Weddings

At a wedding long ago, one of the guests was this adorable young woman sweetly dressed in a pink velvet top and a wide pink satin skirt that reached her ankles. She was petite with a strawberry blonde shaitel full of little curls down to her shoulders. She looked like the perfect doll come to life.
 
Imagine my shock when we started circle-dancing and she grabbed my hand, immediately yanking on my arm with a force that belied her delicate little stature. I immediately pulled away – but she actually hung on!

Then she let me go and as I stepped away from the dancing, the next woman joined hands unsuspectingly with the The Doll, only to immediately be yanked so hard she almost fell over. She looked at The Doll with the same shock I probably had on my face, and also stepped away, rubbing her shoulder. The pattern repeated itself and someone even said, “Ow! Stop – that hurts!”

The Doll responded by pursing her lips and furrowing her pert little nose.
Wimp! she clearly seemed to be thinking.

It ended with several of us standing there and staring at her in disbelief.

“C’mon! C’mon!” she barked, bouncing on her feet like a boxer up for the next round. “Let’s dance! C’mon!” Her lips rubbed against each other and her eyes lit up like the eyes of those who go to hockey games to see the blood bounce off the ice. Her little fists pounded her satin skirt as she looked at us. “Come on! What’s wrong with you guys? This is a wedding! Let’s dance!”

At that point, as if one, we drifted away to other circles of dancers.

As I looked back, her face was all pinched and glaring in a way that clearly said, Can’t take the heat, eh? What a bunch of wimps!

I wondered who'd had the guts to marry her.

A girl name Miriam loved to attend weddings because she loved to dance for the kallah – something she did with infectious joy and energy. When other girls complimented her dancing, she always answered, “Thanks! B’ezras Hashem, I’ll dance at your wedding, too – may it be soon!”
 
When I mentioned to a mutual friend how much I admired Miriam’s dancing, the friend said, “Sure! And you should have seen how she used to rip up the clubs with her dancing!”
 
“Really?” I said (neither of us realizing at the time that now we were entering the realm of lashon hara).
 
“Sure! She used to go clubbing all the time and dance for hours! She was also really into rap music.”
 
“But that’s so weird,” I said. “Because her dancing is totally tzanuah. She doesn’t throw in any of those provocative moves. She just seems totally happy for the kallah.”
 
“Yes,” said the friend. “Because she’s done true teshuvah. She’s a real example to follow.”

A distant cousin of my husband’s whom I’d never met before danced at our wedding non-stop and with a serious sense of purpose and dedication. When I thanked her later and told her how much it meant to me, she looked surprised and said, “Of course! It’s a big mitzvah to dance at a wedding.”
 
I found out later she was known to be a conscientious, serious, trustworthy type.

Another time, I watched as two newly married women danced for a kallah. One looked unsmiling off to the side, her movements half-hearted and robotic; she seemed not to want to be there and didn't care who knew it - including the kallah. In contrast, her partner gazed warmly into the eyes of the kallah with a quiet smile, her steps gentle and light.
 
Socializing with them later revealed that the first was very unhappy. (Understandably, she was feeling very lonely as a newlywed far away from her family and old friends.) And the second was warm, kind, and engaging (and trying very hard to help the first newlywed not feel so lonely). So this may not have reflected the first newlywed's true essence, but merely the state she was in at that time.

And even outside of weddings, a dancer’s personality still peeps out. At an old age home, I watched as one young woman pranced lightly among the residents, singing softly and pleasantly while clapping her hands gently. I didn't realize at the time she was divorced (her shaitel was very realistic) and the light that shone from her soul belied the traumatic year she spent in an emotionally abusive marriage. (As I got to know her, I discovered an exceptionally special young woman who remarried a really wonderful and sweet bachur not long after.)
 
The old folks mostly slouched in their chairs, staring at nothing, with only a few blessed with enough good health to clap and sway in rhythm. The young woman’s face glowed with gentle joy and caring. Another dancing girl kept stared blankly off to the side as she clapped her hands and bounced around, singing by rote. Then she grabbed the hands of an elderly woman hunched almost face down over a desk and started swinging the woman’s stiff arms back and forth. The elderly lady made a choking sound, then started emitting warbles of pain: “Ahhhahh – ahhahh – aaaaagh!”
 
But the girl didn't stop.
 
Shocked, I put my hand on the girl’s arm and whispered, “Wait, I don’t think she likes that much.”
 
Startled, the girl’s eyes widened as her head jerked around to look at me. Then she gave me a disgruntled frown and shook me off, moving away while looking at me as if I had done something indecent. I was certain it was just a defensive reaction; after all, she must have been embarrassed to be shown how she was accidentally hurting this arthritic old lady. I thought that was the end of it until I saw her back with the same woman, the elderly lady’s stiff body rocking back and forth helplessly as the same girl swung the lady’s arms from side to side, accompanied by the elderly lady’s painful warbles.
 
Without thinking, I rushed over to the girl and said, “Stop! Can’t you see you’re hurting her?!”
 
The girl looked at me in startled disgust, raised her chin, and gave a disdainful sniff as she danced as far away from me as possible.
 
She seemed so sure of herself, I started wondering whether I’d misinterpreted the elderly lady’s sounds. Perhaps the elderly lady was trying to sing along and I mistakenly thought she was in unbearable agony?
 
I leaned over to see if the lady was okay. She lay with her stiff arms stretched out across her desk, breathing hard, and still gasping and groaning a little. Her eyes were wide and frantic-looking. Biting my lip, I asked her if she was okay. She stared at me a moment as if to say, Do you really need to ask? and rolled her eyes.
 
Oddly, that same girl appeared very different in class. She sat staring off into space the entire time, leaning to the side in a way that made me wonder if she was drugged. If directly addressed, she looked startled, straightened up for the time it took her to answer, then immediately flopped over and went back to staring at nothing. She seemed quiet and unhappy, and my initial impression of her was of a nice girl for whom I felt sorry. But her dancing persona gave me a totally different insight.
 
(Although to be fair, popular medications like Prozac can cause its user to become insensitive and even obnoxious to others. Even Tylenol studies recently proved that acetaminophen lowers a person's  empathy. So perhaps the disdainful dancer I saw was not the real her, but merely how she was on medication. Maybe.)

The explanation behind Tu B’Av opened my eyes to the fact that you certainly can see a lot in a person’s dancing. There are basic middot, like a need to dominate or a sense of purpose or insensitivity or someone who just goes through the motions. And then there are personality types – all good, but still different: lively and bursting with simchat chaim or gentle and sweet or serious and committed.
 
And that’s just to name a few.

• So a boy looking for an energetic girl who embraces a life of mitzvot with gusto might choose a girl like Miriam.
• But a boy who prefers a girl who’s gentle and sensitive might choose the second baton-dancer or the young divorcee.
• Yet another boy who’s looking for girl who marches through life with heartfelt seriousness and a strong sense of purpose might choose my husband’s distant cousin.

(And in case you were wondering, The Doll and the girl at the old age home were just 2 out of only 3 times I ever saw such aggressive behavior while dancing. Phew!)