David Bashevkin:
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Hi, friends, and welcome to 18Forty where each month, we explore a different topic, balancing modern sensibilities with traditional sensitivities to give you new approaches to timeless Jewish ideas. I’m your host, David Bashevkin. And this month, we’re exploring intergenerational divergence. Thank you again to our series sponsors, our dearest friends, Danny and Sarala Turkel. I am so grateful for your sponsorship, friendship, and encouragement over all these years. This podcast is part of a larger exploration of those big juicy Jewish ideas. So be sure to check out 18forty.org where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings, and weekly emails.
Before we get started, I just want to give a shout-out to one of our listeners all the way from Melbourne, Australia. We don’t normally do this or always do this, but I found it so sweet and so kind. And we’re all about bringing families and people together. And someone reached out with some birthday wishes.
So this week’s podcast is a special shout out from Humi, Ella, Zach, Leora, Avi, Ashi, Donnie, and Menachem New, in honor of their husband and father’s birthday. Yudi happens to be an avid fan, which we appreciate, and he’s an ideas man who loves to discuss all things Jewish. And we are wishing Yudi, a year of bracha and hatzlacha, all good things and continued meaningful and interesting conversations around the Shabbat’s table. Happy belated birthday. Sorry, we couldn’t get it sooner, but we’re so grateful for listening and to many, many more years of good health and curiosity.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll be honest. I am crawling into Pesach. This has been a very, very long winter. Really beginning October 7th, right after yontif, to where we are today, so much has changed with Israel standing in the world. So much has changed in what it feels like to be Jewish in this very moment.
And I’ll be honest, some of that unity and that fact that we were all rowing together, that we felt in the immediate aftermath after October 7th, at least to my vantage point at some moments, is beginning to fray. It seems like more and more people, Jewish people are not totally on the same page. We have a lot of internal divisions that are beginning to bubble up very real questions, ideological questions, questions about the best way to defeat Hamas, questions about army service in the land of Israel, questions about what it means to be a Jew in diaspora. There are so many questions that have bubbled up, and there is a great deal of fatigue, of exhaustion among the Jewish people. And sometimes in moments like this, I’ll be honest, my emunah, my very source of faith, can begin to fray as well, can begin to erode.
And I’m not talking about my faith in God, but in a very real way, your faith, your confidence in the Jewish people can be shaken. And you sometimes wonder, or at least I sometimes wonder, do we have the strength to get through this? Do we have the strength to remain together to get through this? And every year that we discuss intergenerational divergence, there are always people who restore my faith in the Jewish people because I think the vehicle that is going to bring the redemption, the vehicle that will bring us together is not political leadership, though that’s incredibly important. It’s not institutions and statements though that is important too, I think the vehicle that has brought the Jewish people through each struggle, through each generation, the ship, so to speak, that we have all collectively traveled on, the captain of that ship is the family, are people who realize that the bricks that create the Jewish people, that create Jewish peoplehood is every individual Jewish family.
And when I see families that have tremendous capacity to stretch themselves, to find space in their lives, in their hearts, for divergence, for differences, for different directions, it restores my faith in the very capacity of the Jewish people, because it is a reminder to me at least that the primary vehicle that will ultimately bring us to that ultimate redemption is still very much intact, and that vehicle is the Jewish family. And some families maybe still be building those muscles. And some families through whatever differences and distinctions already have them, that capacity that has been expanded.
And I wanted to focus on today’s episode on one such family and specifically, one such mother who came to Israel for a reason why many people come to Israel, which is to live a life immersed completely in Torah learning, to be a part of the Haredi community. And very often, our plan As in life do not work out.
Everyone has, maybe they don’t articulate it, maybe they’ve never written it down, but everybody has a plan A for how they think their life is going to unfold. And sometimes, plan A doesn’t work out. You have to go to plan B, plan C, plan D. And you keep going down. But it’s the people who have the resilience to embrace whatever plan they’re up to, whether it’s B, C, D, E, F, G, all the way down to plan Z. The people who have the resilience to embrace whatever plan they are given with the same enthusiasm, love and idealism as plan A, are the people who have the capacity and the leadership to show us the way forward. And our conversation today with a mother, Dina, really strengthened my faith, my emunah, my faith in the Jewish people, my faith in the future of the Jewish people, and my faith in our present in this very moment, that we have if we reach deep enough, we have the capacity to get through this. We really, really do.
And it’s the faith of this mother, Dina, that I want to share with you today. So without further ado, here’s our conversation with Dina. It is really an absolute privilege and pleasure to be speaking with Dina, who has two children, who have served in the IDF, and really a powerful story coming from a community that does not normally in their plan A, send to the army and talk about her experiences. Dina, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dina:
My pleasure.
David Bashevkin:
So I wanted to begin with a question almost turning back the clock all the way. When you first got married and established a family, you moved to Israel, is not where you were born and raised. But I was wondering what was your plan A, so to speak, of where communally you plan on raising your family?
Dina:
If you don’t mind, I’d like to start a step before-
David Bashevkin:
Even further back. Sure.
Dina:
Yeah. Just so you can get a little perspective of who I am and where I’m coming from. I was raised in a modern Orthodox community in the New York area, a really very wonderful community. When I think back to my upbringing and now as an educator, I think a lot about the values I was raised with. And I guess it’s a combination of my community and my home. We’re definitely combined together, but the community I was raised in was a community full of Hasid. It still is a community full of Ma’asim Tovim, Jewish education, mitzvos, responsibility, responsibility towards one another, responsibilities to the tzibur, to the community at large on an individual level, raising their children with a feeling of responsibility for Am Yisrael. I laugh sometimes when I hear some of my contemporaries talk about our youth. And we all go back to the same stories, which is how we marched for Soviet Jewry.
David Bashevkin:
Wow.
Dina:
I even recall our eighth grade trip was to Washington overnight on the buses marching for Soviet Jewry. I think today, if any school would do that, there would be some sort of lawsuit or something. But these values really empowered us to our future. At some point, when I took a turn to a more Haredi-oriented life, sometimes, my parents would even say to me at some point, “What was lacking in your upbringing that you made this decision?” And I always tell them the same thing, “Nothing was lacking in my upbringing, I just built on it-”
David Bashevkin:
Beautiful.
Dina:
… which I think is really the truth, and it really needs to be recognized.
David Bashevkin:
I’m so glad you say that, because you know, I have a sister who you also know, who was probably from that same generation the first time that American Jewry… I wouldn’t call it patient zero, so to speak. But the first time, this was in the ’90s where somebody would go to Israel, and we weren’t used to this and would really, what would seem like, they would reinvent themselves, but were really building upon so many of the values that they were raised with, and then choosing to really take it in a different direction. And I just so appreciate you beginning with this, but please continue.
Dina:
So I think in high school, I became very inspired. I was in a co-ed high school, and we had incredible rabbeim from YU. They really gave us the geshmak in learning. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. Coupled with that, I was very involved in NCSY.
David Bashevkin:
Oh, wow.
Dina:
Yes. You didn’t know that about me. And I had incredible role models in NCSY. I was groomed for leadership in NCSY. I was involved in kiruv. Just recently, someone reached out to me who I had an impact on them when we were in high school together, and she was coming from a background that had less observance and she just wanted to thank me for the influence I had on her then, which I hadn’t even remembered until she had said something.
But for a teenager to be able to teach someone how to bentch or teach someone about Shabbos, it really empowers them towards what they have to give and to share with other people. I really appreciated those opportunities, and I really got into it and had a very, very successful, uplifting high school experience as a result.
David Bashevkin:
I think it’s so important that you began with this because your story didn’t begin with fleeing from, but rather building upon. So we’re fastforwarding obviously a great deal. But at some point, you decided you wanted to continue to build your life in Israel, and you chose a Haredi community. And tell me then, you are an American, you’re moving to Israel, it’s a very different culture, what were the feelings when you were that plan A feeling of what you expected your family to unfold in?
Dina:
I was very inspired by what life in Eretz Yisrael is like. And every community that a person can find themselves in Israel, it’s a very real experience. It’s down to earth. It’s no frills. Israel is a place that’s filled with values and people feel strongly about their values. So we came to Eretz Israel with very, very clear ideals and a vision that we wanted to build our home and family surrounded completely on Torah values. Torah should be the epicenter of our life, not that we fit Torah into our lives, but we look at Torah, and then we make decisions based on that. We chose a beautiful community physically and a community that was rich spiritually filled with other chutznikim, olim.
David Bashevkin:
People who were born outside, the diaspora community.
Dina:
Diaspora community, English speakers. In fact, we have a little community over here with a whole bunch of us. The husband’s all learned NYU together. The wives were all in seminary together. And Israel friends are your family. It is a community that has an element of diversity in it, meaning it’s not just one style of Haredi. We have a lot of Hasidim. We have a lot of Sephardim. We have a lot of what we call Litaim or Litvish, which is traditionally Yeshivish.
David Bashevkin:
Sure.
Dina:
And we really were all at the same stage of life, excited, very idealistic. I always used to say, “I thought my self-sacrifice for my children’s education would be moving myself and my family 6,000 miles away from my family, from my comfort zone, from everything that I knew well to raise my family in Israel in a holy atmosphere.” And I just thought that would be the beginning and the end of the story. In my naivete, I never even envisioned that anything could be different.
David Bashevkin:
Yeah.
Dina:
But that was really it. We were passionate about Torah. We were passionate about teaching Torah. My husband and I are both involved in yeshiva and seminaries throughout the years, and we just wanted to bring that enthusiasm to other people and just raise our kids really, I should say, isolated. I wanted to get my kids far away as possible from television and from what I deemed them negative influences and anything that would deter them from that goal.
David Bashevkin:
For sure, which is very much understood. I live in the world that you were brought up in, and those feelings are not foreign at all. I think people, especially when they’re raising young kids, they’re always moments where you cringe by what your kids are exposed to or not exposed to. But let’s move to the next floor where really things begin to almost individuate or differentiate.
When do you realize? I assume you sent your kids to a gan and to, I always forget the right words, yeshiva, ketana–
Dina:
Cheder
David Bashevkin:
Cheder, then yeshiva ketana, which is elementary school and then a high school. When did you first realize that that idealism or almost the plan A, I don’t want to say that the idealism deteriorated because you are the most idealistic person I’ve spoken to in a very long time. But when did you realize that the vision of that idealism is not necessarily going to translate into that first plan of what your life is going to look like that you saw that you had children who were not necessarily thriving in the system that you were committed to?
Dina:
So I would say when our second son, Penny, when he was in around third grade, he started having difficulties in school. In Israel for the boys, their education is very, very focused on learning Gemara and spending many years sitting and learning, which was definitely an ideal for us. But for a child that struggles in learning, we figured out pretty quickly that wasn’t most likely going to be his future.
Thank God he really managed beautifully throughout school, and we were waiting for that moment when things were no longer going so smoothly. And the day actually came, I remember very vividly, he was in eighth grade and he came home from school in the middle of the day and he just said, “I’m not going back.” And I was like, “You’re not going back today?” And he was like, “No, I’m not going back.”
And at that point I didn’t even try to convince him otherwise because I saw it coming on a certain level he is a very sweet, he was, still very sweet, happy-go-lucky child. So I don’t even think he saw what we saw. He was always happy. He always did fine in school.
But knowing that this wasn’t really his strength, we knew that this probably wasn’t going to work out. That started a whole new experience of trying to find educational institutions that were appropriate for him, trying to capitalize on his strengths to make him feel good about what he was good at. It was difficult. It was difficult. It was difficult because we’re not Israeli. So we’re trying to have to navigate in a foreign system.
And he was one of our older children, and we didn’t really know what the options were, and we had to really seek guidance. I’ll be forever grateful to all Shlichim tovim, Hashem’s very special emissaries that we found. Askanim, that means community leaders and rabbinim who were specialized in kids who were struggling, kids at risk. And I remember my husband said very wisely when we first went for a meeting, he said, “I don’t want to push my son off the derech, but I also don’t want to throw him out the derech either.” I don’t want to say, “Okay, this isn’t working for you. So let’s go to the chiloni school down the block.”
David Bashevkin:
And I think part of the challenge in Israel is that the stakes are so much higher, meaning in the United States, and this is really almost the next formative part of the story in the United States, there are children who struggle in Yeshiva high schools, even in the Yeshiva world in America.
But let’s say that system is not working for you, the stakes of switching are much lower because the primary driver that really elevates the stakes is a mandatory army enrollment where in Israel, if you are no longer in the yeshiva track and yeshiva system, you no longer so to speak, have that exemption. So you’re making a choice that is really beyond just what’s the right school that suits my child’s strengths or weaknesses or whatever. It’s tailored to their character. The stakes are much higher.
And I’m curious for you initially when you were evaluating the tracks, did the decision of army enrollment, we’re obviously talking in a pre-October 7th world where there’s something very scary about that. There’s something scary about that if you do send your kids to the army, was the prospect of knowing that if they does not remain in that system, that a lot of those roads lead to the army? Was that frightening for you? Was that scary? It certainly wasn’t your plan A when you moved to Israel where the stakes are now so much higher. How did you initially grapple with the prospect of army enrollment for your children?
Dina:
When this particular son was 13, it was the furthest thing from my mind. My husband and I together were very, very focused on helping this child be the best that he can be. I don’t think parents can parent out of fear. I don’t think that’s the best way to do it. You have to do what’s best for your child at this point in time. You always have to dive in for the future that things work out well.
But honestly, when a child is 13 or 14 years old, what will happen when he is 18 or 19 is completely irrelevant. In the end, the army service became, at that point in his life, the natural next step. What was much more important to us was helping him navigate, helping him find himself, being parents for him, helping to be those guides and those role models. I remember vividly this moment when I took him shopping for the first time to switch his wardrobe.
I was all geared up, very excited, got my credit card. I actually got my American credit card. And okay, we’re going to the mall. And I remember him being so torn in that moment of, “I don’t want to be that image of what Mommy and Tati set up for me,” quote-unquote. But I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what the alternative is. And dress for teens is such a significant part of that.
David Bashevkin:
For sure.
Dina:
And I remember thinking to myself, “Well, I want to be part of this story. I want him to say to me, ‘Do you think the blue shirt goes best with the tan pants?’” You’ll think it’s crazy. Those boys who are much older now, I still go shopping with them.
David Bashevkin:
That is so holy. What you just said right now is so holy and so important of you insisting on being a part of this, part of their story as well, saying, “Just because they’re taking a turn from, we’ll call it plan A from the original ideal” or whatever it is, and not saying, “Well, you know what? This isn’t the road I plan. So Sayonara hatzlacha rabah, good luck,” and say, “We got you to this point, but we can’t go any further.”
But actually insisting on being a part of the story, I think, is so powerful and so important. So tell me a little bit that initial instinct, which is far off in the future, 1819, going to the army, you’re not parenting out of fear. Another point which I think is so important and bears repeating, we don’t parent out of fear. We parent the child in front of us.
But when did army enrollment first become a reality, and how did you confront that, because that’s such a sensitive identity point? Particularly in Israel, I always feel a sense of it’s almost inappropriate as an American, nobody in America is serving in the Israeli army, and you’re there and even in the Haredi community which doesn’t serve en masse, you’re contending with issues in a way that American as yeshivish as the community may be, are not contending with in the same way that they’re contending with in Israel. And I’m curious, the first time that the reality of army enrollment presented itself, what was the reaction?
Dina:
Okay. Well, I have two different stories because I have two different boys.
David Bashevkin:
Okay. Yes.
Dina:
I’ll do both with your permission.
David Bashevkin:
Please.
Dina:
So with Pinny, it was clear to us that he was probably going to end up going to the army, and the question was just how was he going to go to the army? Was he going to go through Netzah Yehuda?
David Bashevkin:
It’s known as Nahal Haredi, right?
Dina:
Kind of.
David Bashevkin:
Kind of.
Dina:
Yeah.
David Bashevkin:
For our listeners, it’s the current iteration of what was once known.
Dina:
Nahal Haredi, right. It’s basically the unit for Haredi boys, which is incredible, and I could speak about it in and of itself for a very long time. It combines with the army service and organization called Netzah Yehuda which follows the boys throughout their army service. That organization is staffed with rabbis who are Haredi, who are there for the boys to help guide them, support them, lead them, be there for them as one of the rabbis just told me recently who I met, he said, “When a boy has to be mechalel Shabbos in the army and it’s the appropriate halakhic thing for him to do, we want to teach them that they’re doing the right thing.
If a boy does not have that guidance and doesn’t have that thinking, so what ends up happening is they think, “I’m mechalel Shabbos.”
David Bashevkin:
Yeah.
Dina:
So if I’m a mechalel Shabbos once and I’m mechalel Shabbos twice, and I’m mechalel Shabbos three times, so I’m mechalel Shabbos. And what does it matter if I’m driving around the Yishuv or if I’m playing games on my phone, I’m mechalel Shabbos.
David Bashevkin:
Yeah.
Dina:
But with their guidance, they really, really helped the boys who are coming from Haredi communities, Haredi upbringing, Haredi education, they don’t really know how to balance and integrate. I think that’s the real word, integrate a halakhic observance with a new world. They’ve never been exposed to that. They’ve never found themselves in some far-flung place where they had to keep Shabbos, and they didn’t know what to do. They’ve been very isolated in their life experiences. We said, “Okay, you’re going to go to the army.” We really wanted Pinny to go into Netzah Yehuda, and he did not want to. That was very difficult for us.
David Bashevkin:
Can you explain why he didn’t want to?
Dina:
He just had a Rambo vision of himself. He wanted to be the best fighter. He ended up being Golani Shlosh Esre, which is a very elite unit, and it is well known in the Israeli army that Netzah Yehuda boys don’t get the best positions in terms of the most Rambo style. I can’t even think of it the most.
David Bashevkin:
I was going to compliment your Rambo reference another benefit of your upbringing.
Dina:
You can change the girl Adam.
David Bashevkin:
Yeah, exactly. I appreciate it. You probably watched it on your Washington trip in eighth grade or something, but I appreciated the reference. But he wanted something that was a little bit more rigorous combat.
Dina:
Exciting.
David Bashevkin:
And your reaction to that as a parent, you’re already grappling with so much. How’d you react to that?
Dina:
I reacted with my Sefer Tehillim is how I reacted with that. Everywhere I went, I was davening for him that he should stay religious. I was so concerned about him staying religious and was actually very, very interesting because he himself didn’t even realize who he is going into this world. The stories were hysterical, hysterical. Every time he was calling us, he was laughing on the phone. I was like, “Okay, what now?”
It was the first night of Hanukkah. They were out in the field. The unit he was in before he went into Golani …
David Bashevkin:
Sure.
Dina:
Immediate commanders were all women for specific reasons, and they were lighting Hanukkah candles. So it was the first night. So they lit, but they only lit with one bracha, l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah. He was like, “I think there’s some more brachos that you’re supposed to stay.”
David Bashevkin:
So he became the Halakhic guide, I guess, for the Golani unit, which is remarkable.
Dina:
It was beyond. It kept coming up and up so many times. So at the beginning, it was fascinating for me to see. He once called me in the middle of the day. I was at work, and I got so nervous. I’m like, “What’s wrong?” He’s like, “Okay, we’re in a cemetery. We went to visit the grave of a chayal that was killed in 1948, in whose name our unit adopted, or what you named after.” And they brought the sandwiches into the cemetery, and I’m like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “Can we eat them?”
David Bashevkin:
Can we eat it? Wow. Beautiful.
Dina:
I called … on the spot. I was like, “Hold on. Don’t do anything. I’ll call her up.” And it was just amazing to see at the beginning what was coming out.
David Bashevkin:
Almost rediscovering his roots when he’s finally away. There’s this beautiful remark that Rav Hutner writes at the end of one of his letters where the pasuk in Tehillim says, “Go out my son and listen to me.” And Rav Hutner notes the fact that sometimes you first need to leave and get a little bit of distance. And only then do you understand what you’ve absorbed and imbibe from your roots and from your childhood that only emerge after a leaving after a little bit of distance, which is really incredible. I’m just curious, did you attend his… There’s usually like a tekes, like of an orientation.
Dina:
Of course.
David Bashevkin:
You did attend the tekes.
Dina:
Of course. Every tekes … We went to every part of this country, to every tekes. I love, I love, love the ceremonies. I found them fascinating. First of all, they’re very religious in nature, with only one exception. I was probably at seven ceremonies with only one exception. They always opened up Tanakh in front of everyone. Read from the pasukim. I’ll never forget Pinny’s first tekes, the commander of the unit got up. He started talking about Bris Bein Habesarim, talking about the covenant. He said, “Do you know why you play basketball in Tel Aviv?” Because thousands of years ago, our God promised Avraham Avinu our forefather this land.
David Bashevkin:
… Absolutely beautiful.
Dina:
I was crying. I was touched to the core. At one such ceremony, the rabbi of the base got up. It was during the time of Sefirat HaOmer screaming, “You are partners with the yeshiva bachurim. The reason you can be successful is because the yeshiva bachurim are learning for you with hasmada, with diligence and with passion and with brand. I was pinching myself. I was like, “Am I sitting at an Israeli tekes not religious unit, the Golani tekes, 800 soldiers, thousands of parents?” I was flabbergasted because that was not my expectation at all.
David Bashevkin:
Were you in the minority? I’m sure you’re once over the crowd. When you’re looking around, were you able to spot any other Haredi parents in the crowd or-
Dina:
There were a few? The truth is I convinced my husband to leave his hat in the car. I’m like, “It’s me. We’re in a hula. It’s 100 degrees. You don’t need that.” He kept his tie and jacket. We were few. It was interesting. We definitely stood out. I love the opportunity to connect with my non-religious counterparts. I loved sitting in the stands, and I had very little exposure. We live in the Yerushalayim area. Most of the people we see around us or even traveling the buses … are religious.
We definitely stood out. Some people were pleasantly surprised to see us. Some people were like, “What are you doing here?” It’s funny, all Jews, no matter where they are, love to eat. So everyone, there’s a whole eating culture associated with these ceremonies. I had to learn the culture.
What do we do at a ceremony? After the first one, I learned, and we made posters. And we wanted to show our son that we love him and that we stand behind him. But going back to your original question on this subject, we’re very proud of our children when they do the right thing. Serving their country is doing the right thing. We were very behind him.
It doesn’t mean we didn’t have our reservations. By the end of Pinny’s service, he was in Corona. When he finished, he had been months away from home, months on the Lebanese border, months of being mechalel Shabbos every single week for pikuach nefesh, for lifesaving necessity. But it took its toll. You take kids who are struggling religiously, and you put them without the support of Netzach Yehuda into the army. It is a big question mark.
David Bashevkin:
It takes a toll.
Dina:
It takes a toll. It takes a toll. Baruch Hashem, he’s Shomer Shabbos, but it took him definitely a while to recover.
David Bashevkin:
It’s a testament to who you are and what the kind of home he was raised in that, again, even after that distancing because it was a very different world that he matriculated into. That shmia, that hearing of what he was raised with stuck with him is a testament both to his character and to you and your home, and your husband. But tell me a little bit about Aryeh because he actually matriculated and did join Netzach Yehuda. He didn’t have the Rambo visions.
Dina:
Right. Aryeh’s story was fascinating, honestly. And Aryeh’s story is actually totally different. Aryeh was completely a yeshiva bocher through and through, at a certain point in yeshiva ketana.
David Bashevkin:
Which is high school.
Dina:
High school, yes. We saw he wasn’t happy. I think satisfaction, I think it’s like oxygen.
David Bashevkin:
Yes.
Dina:
I think all young adults need to feel a sense of satisfaction in what they do. We always try to compliment our children’s experiences with things that they enjoy, and there are things that kids enjoy more and things that kids enjoy less. But he was not a happy camper. He continued in Yeshiva. He was a good boy, and he always wanted to do the right thing. But we were looking for Yeshiva gedolah. We were looking for something that was a little bit maybe-
David Bashevkin:
More open-minded or not as intense.
Dina:
Right. Integrated, some vocational training.
David Bashevkin:
Sure.
Dina:
A little bit, like you said, open-minded. We were trying to find something that suited him, and we actually finally did. And we were really satisfied, and he seemed to be happy or definitely happier. One day, we met him. We went out for ice cream. He’s an incredible person, Aryeh. He’s a very, very truthful person. And he’s a person who’s very strong in his ideals. He always took responsibility. And as a little kid, he took responsibility for the younger children. He does things to the end 100%.
So we’re sitting there in Katzefet minding our own business, and he just turns to us and he says (this is the way I remember it) is he turns to us and he says, “In my mind, there’s two types of people in this country. There’s people that serve in the army, and there’s people that serve in the beis medrash, in the halls of Torah learning.” And he says, “And if you don’t do one, then you should do the other.”
At that point, he turned to us, and he said, “I’m not really learning sufficiently enough for the Israeli army to be dependent on me spiritually.”
David Bashevkin:
Wow.
Dina:
I’m learning. I’m learning.
David Bashevkin:
Yeah.
Dina:
It’s still here a little there. He said, “But if the people of this country are dependent on me spiritually, we’re in trouble.”
David Bashevkin:
That’s very self-aware. But it puts you in an interesting spot, meaning as a parent, do you react to that by maybe pushing and saying, “No, push yourself harder in learning.” You could be that person. You could become that person. How did you react to such an honest self-assessment, which I don’t know if you felt blindsided by that, but how did you react to that self-assessment?
Dina:
I said, “Well, the world is open to you. You can do anything you want to do,” type of thing, meaning if you want to learn more, you have the capability. You can. On the other hand, I was really listening. I felt that he was trying to tell me something, and I wanted to hear what he had to say. And I felt that honesty was so commendable. We live in a world that’s so dishonest, the self-awareness, like you’re saying. So many people are so not self-aware. We trick ourselves into thinking, “I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay,” when his next sentence to us was, “Therefore, I should go serve.” I felt like that mother duckling for make way for ducklings, she’s just bursting with pride. Of course, I want to tie all my kids to my apron and keep them safe with me at home. That would be wonderful except, Baruch Hashem, we have a lot of them, so I don’t know if there have enough room for everybody.
David Bashevkin:
Yeah.
Dina:
But what makes a parent prouder than seeing that a child feels that they’re doing not what’s comfortable for them, but what they think is right? Aryeh at that point was not physically fit. He was very overweight. He was not a Rambo personality. He was a type that was a little bit more bashful, a little bit more inhibited, and that he was willing to put himself in a situation that he didn’t have to, meaning he had his ptor.
David Bashevkin:
His exemption.
Dina:
He had his exemption, and he was officially off the radar, so to speak. I was so incredibly proud of him.
David Bashevkin:
Wow.
Dina:
And even more than that, I was proud of the process that happened afterwards, which is because from the moment of making that decision that he wanted to go to the army to actually facilitating that and making that happen, that was not an overnight type of thing. Pinny was always working out at the gym.
David Bashevkin:
Yeah.
Dina:
And he was ready for it. That was for sure going to be the next part of his story. But Aryeh was just coming totally out of his comfort zone. I even remember the first day he went out to jog, and he could not make it around the block, and I’m like pom-pom, cheerleader mom.
David Bashevkin:
Yeah.
Dina:
And he came back, and I’m like, “How’d it go?” He’s like-
David Bashevkin:
Panting, yeah.
Dina:
I’m like, “How much did you do?” He said, “I did a kilometer.” I’m like, “Great.” And then he just looked at me squarely in the eye, and he said, “But tomorrow, I’ll do a kilometer and a half.”
David Bashevkin:
Wow.
Dina:
And I saw in that moment, he was redeeming himself. He was doing something that he was motivated to do because he wanted to do it. And it was something that wasn’t because it was comfortable for him. He was pushing himself for something outside of him that he felt was right. It was so empowering for him. It was such a moment. And that’s really what we want. We raise our children to take responsibility for their own lives. We can’t predict, and we can’t determine, and we can’t write their scripts for them.
We can fortify them with good values and love and warmth and support and everything physically that they need and everything emotionally that they need. But at a certain point, you want them to fly the coop. You want them to go out there. You want them to be men of valor. You want them to live by something that’s more important than their own personal needs.
And I think because of that, Aryeh’s army experience was actually much different than Pinny’s. When Pinny finished the army, he was done. He was not interested. And Aryeh became the Netzach Yehuda poster boy. So that they kept pushing him for leadership, and he went from being a hayal to being a mefaked, and being a mefaked to being a katzin, and being a katzin to being the next level of katzin.
David Bashevkin:
Officers, different tiers of leadership in the army. Wow. And I think it’s important to mention, I believe it was Aryeh who served and was injured since October 7th. That’s correct?
Dina:
Yeah. Yeah. Just to backtrack for a second, so Simchat Torah morning when we all woke up to mayhem and chaos, and those of us who keep Shabbos, so we didn’t really know what was going on in the world, I just knew that there was a siren and then another siren and then another siren, and we don’t get sirens in our parts too often.
And Aryeh at that point turned on his phone. It’s just such a moment. He got dressed. He came to the safe room. We were all there. I was trying to make Simchat Torah for my grandchildren with our stuffed torahs. And he said, “I’m going.” And I was like, “What do you mean you’re going?” And he was dressed in his… He’s like, “I was the only adult home at the time.” And he said, “Mommy, there’s something really bad going on down south.”
I’m going to cry just remembering it. I’m going to serve on Israel. I’m going to serve my people. I said, “Let me give you a bracha.” And I put my hands on his head, and I said, “Y’varechecha Hashem v’yishmerecha.” And I went through the bracha of Birkat Kohanim, and nobody wants to send their child out to war.
I never, never in a million years, in our 28 years of living here, never imagined that I would ever experience that moment. And yet, I was so proud of him. I was so proud of him that Am Yisrael pulsates through him so passionately that that was his instinctive reaction. I get dressed. I go out, I leave no matter what. I don’t know what’s out there. I’m walking into the fiery furnace, and I’m going with the name of Hashem because this is what our people do.
This is what we do. We stand up for our people, and we go and we protect them. And it was just such a powerful, beautiful moments. I just felt that he’s holy. He’s holy because his intentions have nothing to do with him. They have to do with the greater picture. And that’s how he went into this.
And everyone was davening for him because of us. And everyone knew us, and we family in America and students and alumni and friends in our community, and everybody took Aryeh’s name. And at the beginning, he wasn’t in any place dangerous. And then basically, it was a very long story, but they needed him to go to a different unit, and they needed a higher ranking officer. And this was something he was supposed to do originally. And it was so interesting. The timing was so perfectly orchestrated. If you ever think like, “Oh, my son was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” no, my son was at the perfect place at the perfect time.
We have two nephews that were Bar Mitzvah two weeks apart, one on my side, one on my husband’s side. We’ve been talking about these bar mitzvahs for 13 years. One is an only son in a family of girls, and one is a child that was waited for, for a long time. And both these bar mitzvahs were so important to us. And Aryeh went in Friday night of the second bar mitzvah, and I didn’t want my husband to know he was in America. And I didn’t want my in-laws to know. I didn’t want anyone to know because I didn’t want anything part of their simcha to be ruined. And he said to me, “Mommy, we went in Friday night singing Shalom Aleichem,” and he was moved from Netzah Yehuda to a unit called Geffen, which is not particularly religious.
And they went in with this, and they were heading towards Hanukkah. They had this exchange between the parents and the boys. We made Hanukkah packages for our sons, for Shabbos Hanukkah. And the boys wrote letters home. And we got a letter from Aryeh on Thursday, Erev Hanukkah that said, “Dear Mommy and Tatti, here’s your little boy. And I’m serving in Aza. I’m fine. I’m not missing anything. I’m here to protect our nation.”
And the next thing I find out is that he’s critically wounded. He was evacuated to Assuta Hospital in Ashdod, and I got a phone call one o’clock on Friday afternoon, “Come quickly.” But I can’t even explain to you the purity of these boys’ intention. And Aryeh’s not the only one. They walked in with Hashem. They walked in with this incredible feeling of, “I’m going in to do Hashem’s holy work.” And whatever happens there, and they’re fully aware, fully aware of what can happen, fully aware Hashem should have mercy on all of us, specifically on them fully aware. But they went in with that full knowledge, and that full understanding ready to give up their lives for us. And there is something that is so uniquely beautiful. It reminds me of the Hashmonaim. It reminds me of the stories of the Shoftim, of Yehoshua. These are our holy soldiers. They continue after a long line of other holy soldiers.
David Bashevkin:
We’ve heard a lot of stories, but it really did move me. We’re just sharing the audio, but a parent’s bracha, I have a hard time listening to that without really, really being shaken. I wanted to ask you a little bit about, there are very real differences in the community, and I’m sure that there are other parents who have reached out to you who are looking, you have such strength in the way that you are able to be so proud of your own child.
And I’m curious if you ever had to contend maybe pre-October 7th, but do you ever have to contend with feelings of embarrassment when your son shows up to a predominantly Haredi community in a uniform and make you feel like my parenting didn’t work, the plan that I had clearly didn’t materialize. And you have a child, and there are a lot of differences within all the communities in Israel. No community in Israel is a monolith. But there’s some very real ideological differences. And I’m curious how you contend as a parent with some of those feelings that maybe you’ve heard directly from other people in your community or leaders and contend with feelings of either embarrassment. You clearly don’t have that, but I’m curious if it’s something you had to work through or something that you’ve had to guide other parents with.
Dina:
I think social self-consciousness is a very common reaction. I think every society has its standard of acceptable. I was recently walked into a Vizhnitzer tisch, and I wasn’t wearing a white band on top of my sheitel and a little white apron, and I just felt different. Even though I didn’t do anything wrong, I wasn’t dressed in any way that was inappropriate for my setting. It just wasn’t in line with the community norm.
So I think a social self-consciousness is common in every society. We always have to make decisions for our children that are best for them. If a parent would have a child with special needs and they would decide not to send them to special education because they were embarrassed or because they didn’t want other children, maybe it’ll hurt my daughter’s shidduch or maybe something negative, excuse my strong language, that’s severely inappropriate. And I think everybody would recognize that.
So I think that every parent needs to have a little stronger backbone, and we need to feel confident that what we’re doing is best for our child. We cannot be the slightest bit concerned about what’s going on around us in the periphery, in the community, what somebody might say.
If we would always guide our behavior based on what somebody might say, we would not really be able to live in a healthy way. So that’s my outlook. In terms of the plan A and the plan B, again to what we started with at the beginning of the conversation, it really depends how you look on what plan A is. If plan A was, “I want my children to do X” and they’re not doing X, so then it’s not that. But if Plan A can be tweaked a little bit and broadened a little bit to be, I want my children to serve their creator, I want my children to stand up for what’s important Torah values, I want them to stand up for their people, I want them to be the first ones to jump in to help other people, so yes, they’re not sitting and learning. But they’re equally fulfilling their role in a just different style.
So I try very hard to encourage parents, you’re correct, people do turn to me. And I feel like after our experiences, even more specifically recently with Aryeh and spending six weeks in the hospital with him, I really feel that I want to get a little wagon, and go out there with some placards, and put up a blow horn, and encourage people to come my way. But I really think it goes back to fundamental ideology and parenting and what our role is. I was walking with my eight-year-old this week, and she turned to me innocently, and she said, “‘Mommy, when I was in Shamayim, did you pick me, or did I pick you?” She’s very deep,
David Bashevkin:
My goodness.
Dina:
So I just looked at her, and I said, “‘We picked each other.” But every child is given to every parent with Hashem’s direction. And Hashem feels that I am the best parent to parent this child, and that I have the ability, I have the seichel. I have the wisdom. I have the conviction. I have the fortitude. I have everything it takes to bring this child to his best place.
I think we need to believe in that, and I think we need to believe in our inner voice, listen to our inner voice. Every parent is given siyata dishmaya. They’re given heavenly guidance in terms of how to raise that child. I think we need to recognize with that voice. I feel like instinctively every parent knows on a certain level what feels right for that child. And I think we need to listen to that voice more. We have to recognize that voice, and we have to listen to it.
David Bashevkin:
I was wondering if you could speak almost more broadly, not in terms of your relationship to your children, but your relationship to Israel, Israeli Society, Eretz Yisrael, watching this journey that your children have been on, and especially given some of the more sensitive issues that have emerged post-October 7th, I’m curious what you draw upon to have the capacity to be so open-hearted, if that was something that you worked through. Is that something that transforms specifically because of your children’s journey or because of how much October 7th has changed the landscape of what it means to be a Jew?
But I’m wondering if you could speak more broadly, not in terms of your relationship with your children, but almost your thoughts on how to maintain this sense of unity and purposefulness that we’ve seen in so many facets of society post-October 7th.
Dina:
I learned a lot in the hospital, the six weeks that I was there with Aryeh. On one hand, when your child is suffering, it’s difficult. And when you’re seeing so much suffering around you, it’s heartbreaking. The television, the waiting room did not stop 24 hours a day, all the stories, all the pictures, the endless stories. At a certain point, a person has a difficult time absorbing all the sorrow and all the pain.
What I saw in the hospital was so authentically Jewish. It was our best at its core. It was as if we were all wearing the same clothing or had the all its same exterior, or we didn’t even notice anybody’s exterior. I personally was the recipient of a tremendous amount of love and embrace, and warmth. When I got there on Friday afternoon, I was without my family. It was close to Shabbat.
They kept saying, “Where’s your husband? Where’s your sister? Where’s your parents?” And I could said, “I’m here with Hashem and you.” My best friends became the chayilot. Literally, the other parents became my sisters. The other mothers, I still feel very, very strong close relationship with them. And we’re in touch, the doctors, the nurses, everybody.
We were one. We were one without any separation. Just to share with you one short story, and I could share with you many stories. The day that Aryeh got up on his two feet for the first time, it was an extraordinary milestone. And the chayal in the bed next to him, Idan, had lost a leg. He lost a leg from the hip. A long time, they weren’t sure if he was going to be able to even get a prosthetic or not. And Idan’s mother, Dana, who’s not religious, was watching Aryeh get up on his two feet.
I couldn’t handle the scene. I could not handle this at all. I turned my head away from Aryeh. I started davening. I started praying. I said, “Hashem, please make some glass vase break someplace, distract this woman.” I cannot see this mother whose son will never walk again on two feet, watch my son get up and stands on two feet. I can’t handle this scene.
My tefillos went unanswered. There were no major sirens. There were no distractions. The medical clowns did not come in at that moment. And I watched Dana watch Aryeh get up on his two feet, and she’s cheering him on, “Go, Aryeh.” And I’m crying, not because Aryeh’s getting up on his two feet, which is what I should have been focusing on because I’m crying, because I’m thinking what it’s like to be that mother and what strength and emunah it must take of her to look at my son stand on two feet when her son will never stand on two feet again.
I just went over to her, and I said to her, “Dana, who are you? Where do you get the strength from?” And she says to me, “Ma.” I said, “Ma. What do you mean?” You saw what I just saw and I know that you’ve been six weeks here, and we’ve been five days. Don’t tell anybody. And she said, “It’s nothing.” And I said to her, “It’s not nothing.” And she said, “I lost a brother in a previous war. They came knocking on my door. I know what it means when they come knocking on your door. I said, ‘I’m not answering that door. I refuse to answer that door.’”
Yigal, my husband said, “Dana, we have to answer the door.” She said, “No … Hashem can do anything. He will live. And they came to tell me that he was dead. And I said, ‘No, he will live.’ And look, he’s alive. And not only he’s alive, but he’s with us. His personality is with us. His head is with us. He’s with us. What’s the big deal? He’ll be a better father. He’ll be a better husband. He’ll be a better everything in life. A year out of 120 spent in rehab. What’s the big deal?”
I was fainting. I was fainting. And she said, “By the way, I think you need a little bit more strength in your emunah. I see sometimes you’re not as strong.” And I’m like, “I thought I was strong before I spoke to you.” And that’s what I mean that I saw Am Yisrael at its most glorious, most beautiful place. Dalia, who was the head nurse, turned to me and she said, “Dina,” she said, “You and I would have nothing to do with each other. I’m a leftist. I’m a feminist. I live outside of Aza for ideological reasons.” And I kissed her, and I hugged her. And I said, “Dalia, who cares? You’re my sister, and I love you. And I love you.”
What she did for me there, what she did for me, what she did for Aryeh, you have no idea. I could write a book about how she sacrificed herself for us. Why? Because we’re sisters and because we’re brothers. It sounds crazy to say, but it was the most euphoric experience. I really think that we need perspective. I teach this second Temple time period. And when you go back to the time of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, and we read the Kinot every Tisha B’Av when we pluck our tongues, and we’d say, “They were so blindsided, and they were so stubborn, and they were so into their ideology and their political positions.”
And I’ve been living there. I never would’ve let that happen. But we’re still in our political positions, and we’re still in our stubbornness, and we’re still in our ideas. And I really believe that the power of unity, first of all, it’s been taught to us in so many different ways throughout the Torah that this is such a powerful force unity. It’s a powerful force that can really conquer all. But it doesn’t mean that we all agree. And it doesn’t mean that we’re all the same.
It means that it doesn’t matter. It means that there’s something more important. I can leave it aside. I was thinking about it. When your son is hovering between life and death, all of a sudden, your life is very clear that your neighbor having to park his car in your driveway becomes 100% irrelevant. It becomes irrelevant. Am Yisrael is in the operating room. Am Yisrael is hanging by a balance. We have to be better. We have to be better. We have to resist the temptation to fall into that pit of division. We have to pull ourselves higher, and we have to see the big picture. And we have to be bigger, and we have to be better. And we have to focus on what unites us and not what divides us. And then if we can all do that and really all do that, maybe, we can emerge and maybe we can bring ourselves to the next part of Jewish history, halevai.
David Bashevkin:
Dina, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to speak today. Such an incredibly moving story, a shining light really for Amcha Yisrael, a story that we need so much in this moment. So I’m so grateful for your time today. I really appreciate what you shared. And the way that you see the world is so deeply moving. And if only the glasses that you wear can be replicated and scaled out so everybody could see through those eyes, but at the very least, you sharing your story is the closest thing that we’ll get. And I remain so grateful for your time and for sharing with us today.
Dina:
My pleasure. Thank you for having me. We should share good news.
David Bashevkin:
This is really an incredible family and an incredible mother. We have a future episode with the very head of Nahal Haredi. And when I was asking him who are families who I could speak to, who have navigated this ideological divide between the Haredi community and the rest of the community, he did not even hesitate for one second and not having known that I had already recorded and did an episode with Dina. He said, “This is the person you need to speak to.” And I believe it is really an example of the type of capacity and strength and connection that is going to ultimately give us the capacity to reach that final destination, that final redemption that the Jewish people have been longing for. I want to share with you very briefly, her son Aryeh shared a letter that he sent to his family while he was in Gaza.
And I want to read it to you. I found it very beautiful. I find the communications that families have when they are apart. Most people have lost the art of letter writing, but when you have a son in the army, as most, if not everyone in Eretz Yisrael knows, this is how you’re able to keep in touch a lot of times. You’re not always able to use your cell phone. And this is just a very quick note that he sent, and it’s so beautiful and is a testament to the strength of this family. He wrote, ” Hello Mom, Dad, who are so dear to me. I’m here, your son, Aryeh. I’m in Gaza. Everything is okay.
Thank God we are not missing anything. It is a great merit to even be here and to fight and defend for the Jewish people. Am Yisrael Chai. That is how he signed this letter.
At the Pesach Seder, right before we talk about the four sons at the Seder, we always say a prayer called Baruch HaMakom Baruch Hu, where we praise God and refer to God as Makom as a place. And the question is, why are we referring to God at this moment as a place? And Rabbi Soloveitchik says something so beautiful that we invoke the name of God as Makom, as a place.
In those times and in those moments when we need to be reminded that Hashem is everywhere in our lives, many may already know that we use the same description of God, the same name of God, God as Makom when we pay a shiva call during nichum aveilim. When somebody is in aveilus, in mourning, we say, “Hamakom Yenachem etekhem.”
It’s in those times when there is an absence, when you feel like God is missing from our lives, so to speak, that we invoke God as place as a reminder that even in that absence, the very place, the very stability of our lives still remains tethered to the divine, still remains anchored in God’s plan. And it’s for this reason, Rabbi Soloveitchik explains that we look around at our Pesach Seder, and we look at all of the different approaches and people. And sometimes we look at our Pesach Seder.
And like every Pesach Seder, and like every family, you see a lot of plan Bs and plan Cs and plan Ds. And you go all the way down. And the way to raise a family and to bring a family together is in that moment to say, “Baruch Hamakom Baruch Hu,” a reminder that our relationship with God and Yiddishkeit is for everyone around the table.
That it may seem like someone may have gone in a different direction, may have seen somebody made a choice that you’re unable to countenance. And we remind ourselves on Pesach that no matter where anybody is around the table, no matter how difficult it may have been, the journey that brought you to this moment, Baruch HaMakom Baruch Hu, the place on which we stand, the place on which this family is anchored, that place is godliness itself, is divinity itself because every family in every Jewish home and every Jewish Seder stands on that place anchored in the divine and in a divine plan that is unfolding generation after generation.
And I want to end with one thing that Dina wrote. She published this in Mishpacha Magazine. It was under a pseudonym, and I find it so beautiful in everything that we try to explore and discuss on 18Forty. She said, “We’re often machmir,” which means we’re often stringent.
We often take on stringencies in high levels when it comes to Mitzvot’s Bein adam laMakom when it comes to those commandments between us and God. And she lists a few of the mehudar etrog, you spend a gazillion dollars on an etrog, maybe chadash, yashan, those are stringencies, and the type of bread and food that you put in your mouth on Ahavat Yisrael, the type of milk you drink. And she asks, “Do we channel some of that hiddur do we channel some of that stringency, so to speak, in our shmiras mitzvos bein adam l’chaveiro in the way that we relate in our friendships, in our relationships, in our family lives?
Do we consider it lashon hara to talk about people with different frumkeit standards than ours, or do we rationalize in our minds that they don’t count? Can we take the same brand, the same passion, the same excitement that we use to make a beautiful Shabbos Seudah and keep the highest standards of kashrus and use it to go out there in the proper halachic manner to love our Jews indiscriminately?
The Gemara in Maseches Yoma, she says, teaches us that just as we have a mitzvah to love Hashem, we have mitzvah to make him beloved through our actions and behavior. And it’s that stringency that I think the Pesach Seder represents when we talk about having a chag kosher v’sameach. People always point out, there’s always an emphasis. My mother emphasizes the sameach, it should be happy. Some people, you could turn your house upside down. When I’d come home, our house, as a kid, was covered in tinfoil, head to toe, everything. The whole kitchen is tinfoil wrapping this, that.
And that’s good, and we got to get all the chametz out of our house. But maybe this year when we wish a chag, kosher, the sameach that our Pesach should be kosher, extra kosher, very kosher and happy and joyous, we should realize that some of that kashrus, some of that chag kosher, that kosher chag, the Passover where you turn over every corner in every house, some of that energy and some of that excitement to make sure that that kosher also applies to the way that we treat everybody in our household.
The way that we talk about every segment of the Jewish people, the way that we look out at Am Yisreal, the Jewish people who have survived so much this year and survived so much through the generations, and that a true kosher Passover, a true chag kasher v’sameach is one that channels that stringency and that exactitude and that meticulousness not just to our cabinets and cupboards and countertops, but to our children, our relationships, and to the Jewish people themselves.
So it is with that, that I wish each and every one of our listeners thank you so much for your support. This has been a really hard couple of months for me on a personal level, on a Jewish people-hood level. It’s been a really hard couple of months for me. And your kindness and your support and your encouragement means so, so much to me. And on a very personal level to know that we have this community that talks ideas and argues, and debates and reflects together has been an immeasurable comfort to me on a very personal level.
So from the bottom of my heart, wishing each and every single one of our listeners a chag kasher v’sameach, a happy Passover, a joyful Passover and uplifting Passover, and that we should each collectively experience together that ultimate redemption, ultimate geula, where no one’s in captivity, where every Jew has a place at the Passover Seder, where every Jew has a place on Pesach, we should see together that true, true, true feeling of L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim.
So thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to our dearest friends and sponsors, Danny and Sarala Turkel. I am so grateful for your friendship and support. This episode like so many of our episodes was edited by our dearest friend, Dina Emerson. If you enjoyed this episode or any of our episodes, please subscribe, rate, review, tell your friends about it. You could also donate at 18forty.org/donate. It really helps us reach new listeners and continue putting out great content.
You can also leave us a voicemail with feedback or questions that we may play on a future episode. That number is 516-519-3308. Once again, that number is 516-519-3308. If you’d like to learn more about this topic or some of the other great ones we’ve covered in the past, be sure to check out 18forty.org. That’s the number 1-8 followed by the word forty, F-O-R-T-Y.org, where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings, and weekly emails. Thank you so much for listening. And stay curious, my friends.