Vayakhel-Pekudei: Hope in Community in Dark Times

I want to read the news without crying; don’t you?

As I planned out WLI’s communications and social media calendar for this month, I felt such excitement at being able to use Women’s History Month to highlight the decade of impact the Women’s Leadership Institute has had in our community. I want to be able to talk to you about hope, and empowerment, and inspiration; not attacks on synagogues, and bombs, and war. But it occurs to me, that the work of the Women’s Leadership Institute is maybe the very thing we need to hear about right now. Rather than give into despair, that the brokenness of the world is too big for us to do anything about, I would rather we look to what we can do, the ways we can step up for our community, our families, friends, and neighbors. As Pirkei Avot teaches us, “It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

As we prepare to read the final double-portion of the book of Exodus this Shabbat, Vayakhel-Pekudei, I am drawing strength from the Israelite community it envisions, the type of people I want to live among. Everywhere in this portion, whose first word is about the people gathering in community, we read about those whose hearts move them to give. The people’s generosity is so overflowing that at one point, the main architects of the tabernacle, Betzalel and Oholiav, run to Moses and tell him “tell the people it’s enough!” And we read, especially, of the women, artisans who are described as having chochmat lev, often translated as “skill” but more accurately rendered as “heart-wisdom”. The work of the WLI is to channel that generosity of spirit, that heart-wisdom, so that we can build that same type of abundance in our own community, and in so doing craft sacred spaces that elevate Jewish values, Jewish interconnectedness, and Jewish joy when the news makes us want to weep or to hide.

If the early years of the Women’s Leadership Institute were about building something new, the ensuing years, as we welcomed Cohort 4 and Cohort 5 in 2018 and 2019, were about that sense of abundance. It became clear that this organization was something adding incredible value to our Greater Phoenix Jewish community, as more and more women became mentees and mentors and our alumnae community grew. New projects took shape, both in support of our community partners like Jewish Free Loan (Mikayla Laufer of Cohort 4’s 70 Stories for 70 Years Archive, and Becky Azulay of Cohort 5’s Care Bags Program) and a number of independent projects where mentees saw a need in the community that they used their generous spirit and heart-wisdom to fill. Jen Rogers (Cohort 4) organized an interfaith experience for kids, and Madeline Sherman (Cohort 5) started a young adult Torah study group.

And of course the real test of the abundance and generosity coming out of WLI came at the end of Cohort 5’s year when the Covid-19 pandemic began. Rather than give up on their work, the women of that year’s cohort came together, pivoted, and led with grace and fortitude into our radically changed digital future.

This Shabbat, if the news is making you want to get in bed, pull up the covers, and have a good cry, I understand. But I hope that once you breathe through your sadness, you’ll turn your focus instead to the givers all around you. When we celebrate the leaders who continue to show up with over-flowing hearts it gives us a chance to cultivate hope for the future.

If you’re inspired by WLI’s story so far, we hope you’ll save the date to join us on May 14th as we celebrate a new generation of graduates and a decade of advancing women’s leadership, connection, and empowerment in our community.

Shabbat Shalom and happy Women’s History Month from all of us at WLI. May your heart-wisdom continue to strengthen and guide you in these difficult days.