With our dreams and decisions, we will still need to put in the work. Cultivating a vineyard is messy, backbreaking work

A Visionary

IN this pasuk, the eishes chayil looks at an empty field for sale, buys it, and transforms it into a vineyard.
How did she do this?
The eishes chayil was zamemah, strategic. When she saw potential, she acted. She had goals for herself and her family, and she evaluated purchasing the field against the criteria of her goals. Actualizing that vision took hard work. Mipri kapehah, from the labors of her hands, she turns a field into a kerem, a vineyard, something more valuable than what she’d initially acquired.
Rav Yosef Nachmias notes how far her vision extended. The word nata is written in the masculine form, but pronounced with feminine grammar. The text as written means he planted, but it’s read as “she planted.” The eishes chayil wasn’t a farmer. That was her husband’s domain. With her vision and foresight, she bought the field which gave her husband the opportunity to earn a parnassah and fulfill the mitzvos hateluyos ba’aretz. Because it was her vision, the pasuk attributes it to her.

This pasuk is teaching us that life isn’t supposed to be lived on autopilot. We can’t plan the trip called life if we don’t know where we’re heading. We each must dream and then plan strategically to see the greatness of which our family is capable.

Rebbetzin Neustadt a”h, in her beautiful sefer Mipninim Michrah, emphasizes that this dream must be grounded in our personal reality. Each family is unique. We can’t just do what everyone else is doing. We need to have goals and a vision for our home based on our own strengths and weaknesses and the actual personalities and needs of every family member.

Having a vision is just a start. Next comes the decisions. When we have a vision, we can choose when and how we say yes or no. I have a goal to teach Torah. That means when someone asked me to do business consulting, I said no. When Family First approached me to write this column, I said yes. When we say no to something, it means saying yes to something else. Knowing when we will say yes makes it easier to say no when we need to.

With our dreams and decisions, we will still need to put in the work. Cultivating a vineyard is messy, backbreaking work. Building a Torah home likewise takes effort, tiring days, and long nights. But the results are worth it. We will be blessed to create something in partnership with our husbands. And just like the eishes chayil, what we create with hard work based on a vision will be better than we could have ever imagined.

Question: What are your goals for yourself and your family? What are your “yesses”?

Shira Hochheimer is the author of Eishes Chayil: Ancient Wisdom for Women of Today, a presenter for Torat Imecha Nach Yomi, and an administrator for WITS in Baltimore, MD.

All About Intention

The eishes chayil continues to move her and her family’s life forward. She sets her intention on acquiring a field, and once that is accomplished, she has already laid out her next goal of planting a vineyard.

The word zamemah means to intend to. We all have lots of good intentions. There are people we plan to call, things we should take care of, chesed we should do. The gap between intention and execution can be daunting, and in that chasm lies the fuel that feeds our negative feelings about ourselves, filling the secret well of inadequacy that many of us carry, no matter how outwardly successful we appear.

The first time the word zamam appears in the Torah, is in the section (Devarim 19) on eidim zomemim, false witnesses who frame someone for a capital crime. They are punished with the punishment of the person they tried to frame.

Hashem created a greater measure of good than bad in this world, which means that the same power of planning that the eidim zomemim used to concoct a story good enough to be plausible before the beis din can be used even more effectively when the plan is for something positive

In his sefer Bnei Machshavah Tovah, the Piaseczna Rebbi, Rav Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, lays out the foundations for those who want to be purposeful and intentional in their service of Hashem. He stresses the need for this in order to achieve their spiritual goals.

Going back to our good, though unfulfilled intentions. Perhaps the answer to our lack of execution is in that same word — zamemah. Intention is the beginning, but the conspiring, the planning, is what fills the void between intention and execution.

The Medrash Tanchuma brings down that this pasuk refers to Sarah Imeinu, who set her sights on acquiring the field in which Mearas Hamachpeilah is located. Even though it was ordained from Above that she not realize her goal, her plan set into motion Avraham’s acquisition of the field after her death.
To be an eishes chayil, no matter what your station in life, means being a zomem, a person not just with good intentions, but also with a plan for achieving those goals.

Debbie Greenblatt is a senior lecturer for the Gateways organization and a teacher of both the observant and the not-yet-observant. She is also director of education at Core.

Mother of a Nation

This pasuk refers to Yocheved, the daughter of Levi, and mother of Moshe Rabbeinu. How was she worthy of giving birth to three of Am Yisrael’s greatest leaders: Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam?

In Chikrei Lev, Rav Yosef Eliyahu explains that Levi recognized his unique role as the one to dedicate his life completely to avodas Hashem. He took personal responsibility for his role in the sale of his brother Yosef, eternalizing his part in the names he chose for his children, names that reflected the reality of galus and its purpose.

He called his daughter Yocheved, using Hashem’s name, yud and vav, along with the word “kavod.” He saw within her neshamah the koach to bring kevod Shamayim to the world, which would generate a tikkun for mechiras Yosef.Chazal teach us that Yocheved was born
“bein hachomos,” between the walls, as Yaakov’s family entered Mitzrayim. Chikrei Lev explains that the “walls” of Mitzrayim symbolize being locked into the mindset of Egypt: being stuck in a particular situation.

Explains the Ibn Ezra: The Jewish people who were raised in Mitzrayim were so afraid of the Egyptians pursuing them at the sea that they cried and said they would rather go back to slavery than face the unknown.

In contrast, Yocheved, who was born right before passing through the walls, was impervious to the poisonous Egyptian influence. She was able to disregard Pharaoh’s directive to kill all baby boys and stand up to Pharaoh when confronted. She further passed this koach to her children, enabling them to resist Egypt’s total control and lead Am Yisrael out of Mitzrayim.

“From the fruit of her labor” refers to her as the fearless midwife. She birthed Hashem’s “vineyard,” His beloved nation. The Torah tells us, “And it was when the midwives feared Hashem, that He made houses for them.” Rashi comments here that these are houses of Kingship and Priesthood.

In Ruach Eliyahu, Rav Elya Svei explains that Yocheved and Miriam’s tremendous yiras Shamayim motivated their mesirus nefesh to save the Jewish children. Yocheved passed on this quality to her children, building them into devoted leaders of the Jewish people. Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlita adds that the houses of royalty and kehunah were established on the foundations of Yocheved and Miriam’s own homes. Their values and character became their glorious family legacy, inherited and preserved by their descendants for all time.

Rebbetzin Shira Smiles is a lecturer in the Yerushalayim area, and a mechaneches in Darchei Binah Seminary. She is the author of Torah Tapestries, which includes extensive essays on each parshah, and Arise and Aspire on birchos hashachar.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 927)