From my living room window, I look out at a small JNF forest.
Just a few years ago, what was called a "forest" was little
more than a few clusters of evergreen trees at the bottom of
the valley just below our neighborhood.
In the past decade, seeds from the original trees have
sprouted into new saplings, increasing the density of the
little forest, and birds have carried seeds to the rocky
hillsides, where new trees are now growing.
The trees have been "sleeping" all winter but at this time,
after Tu B'Shvat, their inner clocks tell them that it's time
for the sap to start flowing and for new growth to begin. New
pale green sprouts are appearing on the old dark green
trees.
There are a few deciduous trees which, over the years, have
joined the evergreens. After all, in the framework of
"nature" by which the Ribbono Shel Olam chooses to manifest
Himself in this world, birds aren't expected to be
discriminating about the types of seeds that they leave
behind.
The deciduous trees are starting to bud and will soon fill
out with new leaves.
Each year, we have new trees and new branches on the old
ones. Before very long, our small "forest" will have earned
its name.
Until now, I never realized how quickly a landscape can
change from bare brown hills into lush greenery.
It is the same with ideas and concepts.
Until about seven decades ago, Jewish girls stayed at home
with their mothers and grandmothers. It was there that they
learned to cook, clean, and care for younger children. Often
the girls also received on-the-job-training in running a
small store or cottage enterprise.
After the Austrian government, which then controlled Polish
Galicia, introduced the notion of compulsory secular
education for girls, Sarah Schneirer zt'l countered
with the Bais Yaacov movement. From Poland, the seeds of Bais
Yaakov were carried to Eretz Yisroel, America, Western Europe
and other areas, where B"H new Bais Yaakov schools and
seminaries are opening every year.
The modern yeshiva system that began in Volozin quickly
spread throughout Europe. After the original yeshivas were
destroyed in the Holocaust, new centers of learning were
planted and have taken root, sprouted and grown all over the
world.
At a convocation of Agudas Yisroel in pre-War Europe, the
Lubliner Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Meir Shapiro zt"l,
introduced the concept of the Daf Yomi, the systematic
learning of a blatt gemara each day. Today it would be
hard to find a Jewish neighborhood that doesn't have at least
one Daf Yomi shiur, and often there are several. You
can pick your time, starting from early morning until after
maariv.
In the 1940s, Rabbi Aharon Kotler zt"l moved what had
been a small fledgling kollel in a New York suburb to
then-rural Lakewood, New Jersey, and popularized the concept
of post-marriage Torah learning in America. Today, most young
married men learn in kollel for several years and many
stay on through middle-age and beyond.
In the 1970s and 80s we began to hear reports that a few
rabbis from Eretz Yisroel, America and other Jewish centers
were making clandestine visits to Jews behind the Iron
Curtain to bring seforim, tefillin, matzos and other
Jewish necessities to those few refuseniks and baalei
tshuva who were trying to observe the fundamentals of
Yiddishkeit there.
I remember when we were living in California during those
years, a woman in our community got word from the famed
refusenik activist Carmela Raiz that the women in her group
were ready to begin covering their hair! Within a week, my
friends and I collected, washed and styled over a dozen
sheitelach and sent them on their way.
There were constant appeals for Jewish people to write to
various government officials in the U.S.S.R. on behalf of the
refuseniks. We pleaded with these bureaucrats to grant exit
visas to those who wished to leave.
Today, there are Jewish schools, yeshivas and kollels
throughout Russia. Furthermore, Eretz Yisroel has a thriving
network of Shuvu institutions to guide our Russian brothers
here in their quest for learning and identification.
In the 1960s, a few pioneers in the world of kiruv
started doing outreach to encourage college students and
other assimilated Jews to find their Jewish roots. Today, the
average Jewish neighborhood has more residents who are
baalei tshuva than Frum From Birth.
It just takes one or two individuals with a vision. They
plant a new idea, and look what can grow!
Right now, there is an exciting new grassroots movement that
is spreading throughout the Jewish world. Women and girls are
taking upon themselves to commit a few minutes each day to
learning two halachos of shemiras haloshon.
As in most of the other "revolutionary" movements listed
above, the idea is simple. There are neighborhood chairwomen
who distribute materials to building representatives. The
building representatives then go around just before the
beginning of each month and encourage each of the women in
their building to learn two halachos of shemiras
haloshon each day.
There is a monthly raffle. To enter the raffle a woman has to
learn the two halochos for each of 15 days in that
month. Learning every day of the month entitles you to two
raffle tickets. The prizes are very worthwhile: a camera,
gold jewelry, and a set of silverware so far, and more to
come.
And what is growing from Mishmeret Hashalom's campaign
of promoting two halachos a day of shemiras
haloshon? A lush fertile landscape of positive speech and
good interpersonal relationships, where shalom, shalom
bayis and ahavas chinam are sprouting — and
spreading the seeds of the Ultimate Redemption, may it come
soon.
