A resounding “Yes!” as 40,000 women pledged to reevaluate their relationship with technology

Coordinated by Michal Frischman

“Can we live higher?”

That was the question TAG posed at its Nekadesh event last week.

The answer? A resounding “Yes!” from 40,000 women around the globe.

And 40,000 women pledged to reevaluate their relationship with technology, to keep seeking to grow closer, to increase kedushah… to live higher.

Living Higher

Chayale Kaufman

When I started working with the TAG staff, Shmuli Rosenberg and Mrs. Rochel Fried, on this asifah, and I heard Rabbi Gottlieb’s dream, I was a bit skeptical.

Until recently, I hadn’t really appreciated TAG enough.

But as time passed and my children began getting older, I was able to appreciate this organization and the reasons it’s so critical for us. I realized that there are likely many women who feel the same way I did.

So, when figuring out the direction of the theme, we all agreed that the message had to be a positive, reassuring one that would inspire us women. We knew that we could fill up an arena, but we needed to make sure that when the attendees walked out, they got what they came for.

“LIVE HIGHER — Nekadesh” was born.

The point of this asifah was to wake up our instincts and inject new life into the daily decisions that we may not even think about anymore.

Technology is so multifaceted and so unique to each individual — so its impact on our lives is also multifaceted. For some people, it’s a time-waster. For some people, it affects the kedushah in their lives. For some people, it impacts their self-image. For others, it’s their entire parnassah.

Let me be brutally honest with you: Half of my business comes about through technology.

This event was about making better decisions, even if we feel that they are difficult (and, as Rabbi Haber said, nothing is too difficult for us).

How can I, on a personal level, choose to live higher?

What can I do to act instead of react?

What can I do to protect myself and my home, and properly gauge the influence I have on those around me?

This was an asifah for us as a klal, but the takeaways are meant to be individual, for each person on their own level. We must each look in the mirror and see what we can do to infuse our lives, our every day, with more meaning and greater holiness.

We can do it. Each of us.

We can’t afford not to.