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Jan. 26, 2007
Nourishing our souls
Esther Jungreis thinks teshuvah is the answer.
DAVE GORDON
Over the course of four decades, Esther Jungreis has made a name
for herself as an outreach worker at Hineni in Manhattan, a matchmaker,
ersatz counsellor and best-selling author.
She has just released a new book, Life is a Test, which has
quickly become a best-seller. It's not just because Jungreis has
good advice. She knows about being tested in life.
In 1947, she and her family moved to East Flatbush, N.Y., from Hungary.
Having survived the Shoah, the family had little money and no command
of English. Jungreis found inner strength in the Torah, and never
allowed herself to fall into the trap of permitting her circumstances
to keep her down. She married a distant cousin, Theodore Jungreis,
with whom she had four children.
In the 1970s, she began teaching Torah, and eventually went on to
book Madison Square Gardens for what has since become a famous moment
in kiruv (outreach) history: tens of thousands showed up
to hear her speak.
As a result of her successes, word spread about her efforts throughout
New York's boroughs and onward throughout North America. "This
was before anyone else had [outreach] classes. It was meaningful
and special," said Jungreis in an interview. Eventually, she
opened the Hineni centre in Manhattan, to be "more centrally
located."
Regardless of the neighborhood or, for that matter, individual views
on Judaism, Jungreis said her outreach strategy remains the same.
"My approach is the same for all Jews all over the world,"
she said. "At the end of the day, we are all am Yisrael
(people of Israel): the same heritage in Torah, the same Hashem.
And what connects us is not the superficial nonsense of culture
or society, but our deep roots in Torah. That's something that is
unalterable and sustains us. And that's what I tap into. I push
the Torah buttons and the neshamah [soul], whether [in a]
Chassidic, Sephardic, Reform or Conservative community."
As for the book, it is through these experiences in all facets of
life, in all walks of life, that she is able to distil the most
important lessons for a Jew's life.
"The inspiration for Life is a Test is that every family
and every individual is tested," said Jungreis. "They
are tested in their relationship, marriage, children, or global
tests – such as anti-Semitism or terrorism. Really, it's a
generation that's being tested. But we don't have the tools that
our parents had, because we're raised in our comfortable, pampered,
fragile, materialistic lifestyle."
Without potential for growth and change, we stagnate, developing
into empty shells of bodies without using our minds to overcome
challenges, Jungreis added.
True belief, she said, is of utmost importance to coping with the
obstacles in life. "The purpose of our existence – why
Hashem put us here – is that there is a mission," she
asserted. "It's in each and every one of us, created by Hashem
for a special mission. That's what my goal was in writing the book."
It is through her personal stories and anecdotes that she hopes
to help people understand how to become centred. "[In] all
of these traumas," she said, "Hashem is calling us."
One of the modern tests she pointed to is the world's current relationship
with the Jewish people.
"I think, for the first time, people are starting to understand
the Holocaust," she said. "There's escalation in anti-Semitism.
I see Europe 1938 again. There's no one to stop Iran today. In a
few months, they'll have nuclear capacity. All of our icons have
collapsed; all of the institutions we thought were strong have disappointed
us, like the Israeli government. Our only hope right now is teshuvah
(return). I think people will get a clear picture of what is happening
all over the world."
Not just on a global level, but also on a personal level, the book
tackles a number of difficulties people face in the course of a
lifetime: family trauma, what to look for in a soulmate and what
a person's true identity is. Of the latter, Jungreis said that too
many people place far too much emphasis on their occupation.
"You aren't your job," she writes. "You need to ask:
Who are you and what is your purpose? We need to learn how to build
relationships and how to pass the relationship tests. Turn the pages
in the Torah, because everything is in it."
Abraham, she writes, merited becoming the patriarch of the Jewish
people not because of his smarts or his heart, but rather by the
way he passed the tests that Hashem placed upon him. Our people's
very name, Yisrael, means to "struggle with G-d";
meaning, to embrace our tests head on and conquer them and triumph
over our impulses, to become holier people. We are born seeking
only our own needs, and yet need to be taught to be sensitive to
others, she believes.
"Many today unfortunately go through life not knowing who they
really are," she writes in the book, "never directly coping
with their conscience, never developing a moral compass. Instead,
they turn to mental diversions. There are those who view life as
a game and, to them, the end goal is fun – entire industries
have been created to indulge them in their quest. From movies to
sports, to the latest in computer games, there are myriad distractions
guaranteed to numb and anesthetize their hearts and minds."
According to Jungreis, what remains one of life's challenges today
is how and when to choose what is good over what makes one happy.
"That which is good," she noted, "is based on responsibility
and discipline, giving and sacrifice – taking the harder, more
difficult path over the easy, attractive one."
Dave Gordon has written for numerous papers, including
the Baltimore Sun, Toronto Sun and National Post.
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