Dear friend,

When I received your question, I wanted to answer you right away. I promised myself that tomorrow evening after the children went to bed, I would sit down and write to you. But then my baby kept crying and I had to hold him all evening…

And why am I telling you this? Because I think that this gap between the desire to do beautiful and noble deeds (like volunteering to sit down and answer a question from a new mother asking for guidance ?) and our demanding everyday life, is the basis of your question.

In this week’s parashah we read about the creation of man and find that he is a hybrid creature: “dust of the ground” on the one hand, and on the other hand “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” – there is a part of God in all of us.

On one hand, we must give expression to that divine part, and light our private lives and the whole world with it. We must invest time in nurturing the soul and caring for it through prayer, Torah, correcting one’s morals, mitzvahs and good deeds. But on the other hand, we live in a body that also needs nourishment and nurturing.

Our great challenge as Jews is to be able to maintain both sides, to invest completely in spirituality, but also to be completely connected to the physical world.

There are two ways to do that. One asks us to rise above the material, to sanctify it, to refine it, to give it the place it deserves as transitory and ephemeral and nothing more, and to invest time and energy, thought, and resources, precisely in the spiritual part.

In other words: to raise the earth to the sky.

The second way instructs us to use the vessels of this world, to invest in them so that God’s light can shine through them, and the divine presence is manifested in the materiality of things. This philosophy leads us to carry out physical actions in such a way that they reflect the will of the Creator, the purpose of creation. In other words: to lower the sky to the earth.

Generally speaking, the first way is the male way. It’s the work of men to conquer one’s desire and overcome it. The second way is the female way, belonging to women whose entire work is the work of the body.

But now we have a problem. The male path is paved: there are three prayers a day that requires the Jew to leave his home and his occupations and turns his heart and thoughts to his Father in Heaven. There are anchors in the shape of time-sensitive mitzvos that disconnects the man from the material world and reminds him of his purpose, and the Holy Torah is always waiting for him to come and immerse himself in it and connect his soul to the spiritual world.

On the other hand, a woman’s path is in a tent: a humble, individual path, changing like the moon that is sometimes full and sometimes hidden, depending on the context and time, depending on the situation, easy to move from place to place, requiring flexibility, movement and change.

A few years ago, I wrote an essay and discovered something interesting: whenever the Torah refers to a virgin girl, the word girl is written like the word “boy” – naar – and it’s only the nikud that makes us read the word as ‘girl’- naara. Our commentators explain that only connecting to the sacred part of marital relations fully expresses the feminine sides of our personality, and before that, as girls, these sides are hidden and the more visible sides are the male ones.

This is perhaps the reason why in our youth we are attracted to the male path of spiritual ascension. We daven in schul and study Torah, observe mitzvot consistently, and spend time davening. This wonderful path brings great spiritual light into our lives. But what happens when we experience the sudden transition to married life and motherhood, which require us to turn to the second, personal way, adapted to us, our home and our family?

The prophet says: “He paves a path in the sea” – whoever has ever managed to cross the sea, has not left behind a path for those who come after him. And so it is in the sea of life – the roads are supposed to be paved here and now by us, while we wash the dishes or change the diaper or fry some onions.

And so the question is: how am I supposed to feel after getting used to male spiritual feedback?

I think there is a trap here. Many women who internalized that their role is nurturing their offspring and home, get attached to materialistic things for their own sake, and from there it’s all too easy to lose one’s connection to heaven.

In contrast, other women continue to adhere to the sacred, open their hearts in personal prayer even while occupied in domestic labor, and remind themselves through companionship or solitude or study, why they are here in the world. They love the things of this world because they are vessels for divine light. They don’t give up on the light and are ever adding more vessels for it.

I invited you to take the road map that I have tried to draw for you and find in it a call to lower the sky in which you dwelled in the past to the earth on which you lead such a busy life today.

Do not be afraid to disappoint God, who is always waiting for us, but also do not try to please Him with things that don’t fulfil your soul.

(I of course encourage you to continue your keiruv work, but this shouldn’t replace the nourishment and space for your own soul).

Give your soul the room it needs (Through the intention of the heart! Through prayer, or a minute of just being!) don’t believe the voice that tells you that lack of time makes this impossible.

Perhaps when you tell your soul the true story, explaining that you are paving a unique way for G-d to dwell in your family home, a path the like of which has never been seen before, it will stop nudging you to turn to male spirituality.

But for your soul to believe you, you have to be honest. And then you might discover that you feel at home with your soul and don’t need to escape to sleep or other occupations. Your soul will be grateful for dwelling in a body which gives it expression in so many ways.

May you be blessed with spacious and well-maintained vessels, and with great lights that illuminate them.

Hana S.