I love biking.

Growing up, my brother Yanky and I would bike all over our Brooklyn neighborhood. With Menny home from camp, I finally made the move; I went over to Round House, picked up a Cannondale Trail, and I’ve been having a blast. It’s like my childhood has come back to life. Biked to the library with Menny through Lindley, around the neighborhood with Chana Laya and even biked myself through the “bird” streets on the east side of town near Bozeman Trail Road. I am enjoying it in so many ways, and I am excited to keep it going until the first foot of snow hits the pavement.

In this week’s double Torah portion, Matos-Massei, we read about the journeys that the Jewish people experienced between leaving Egypt with Moses and arriving to Israel’s border where Joshua would lead them into the Holy Land. Of the forty-two locations where they encamped, twenty-two of them were in year one and year forty, and at one locale they were encamped for nineteen years. So, it really didn’t matter the amount of time they were encamped, they treated each location as somewhat permanent, because they never knew in advance what would come next and when it would come. Bill Ackman shared a longish post this week from Sahil Bloom that is summed up with these words “Be in the season you’re in. Don’t romanticize the past, don’t fantasize the future. Be here. Be now. Be in this. All of its texture, depth and struggle. All of its joy, tension, and pain. Sit with the uncertainty. Become friends with it. Fall in love with it”.

Biking is freeing. It’s good for my physical health, but also for my mental and emotional health. Doing it with the kids adds a bonus that I really enjoy and can’t wait for Zeesy to get back from Camp Simcha Special to join me on the trails. Unlike walking, where I could still use my phone, biking needs both my hands, so it really is a break from the noise, the busyness and the distractions that exist. I can look at Bridgers and Mount Ellis, I can smell the flowers and see them blossom, I can meet nice neighbors and fellow bikers, and I can breathe in the clean, pure and delicious air of Big Sky Country.

Bicycle freedom!

May G-d guard our brethren in Israel and the world over from harm and send us Mashiach speedily. May G-d protect the armed forces of Israel and the United States wherever they may be!

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It’s hard to verbally articulate gratitude when the kindness is huge and life-changing. Each year, Zeesy, our beloved fifteen-year-old with special needs, is blessed to attend Camp Simcha Special, a camp geared for Jewish girls like her who Hashem has challenged with unique medical conditions (yes, they have a boys camp too) . Not only did her counselor Charna Rochel fly to Bozeman just to escort her to camp in New York, but the weeks at camp are filled with so much fun, so much attention, so much activity, and mostly each of these hundreds of kids is celebrated and made to feel so special.

It’s why they call it “The happiest camp in the world”.

In this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, Moses is reminded that he will not enter the land of Israel, because he had the opportunity to sanctify G-d’s name when he was instructed to speak to the rock, but he was pressured into hitting the rock instead and it was a big deal. While the rock did give forth water, Moses, and Aaron, failed in that moment, desecrating Hashem’s name and they paid a heavy price for their error. On the verse “You shall love the Lord your God”, the Talmud teaches that we are mandated to ensure that G-d’s name becomes beloved through us. Wherever we go, whatever we do, with whomever we interact, the role of the Jew is to behave in a manner that makes everyone else say, “Wow, the Jewish people are amazing and we’d like to emulate them and raise our children in their footsteps”.

I've heard it being said that instead of taking a Jew-hater or clueless/ignorant/insensitive politician a holocaust museum or to shlepp them to Auschwitz, we should bring them on a visit to Camp Simcha, Camp HASC or maybe to Ohel. Invite them to Bike-4-Chai, take them to a Chasdei Lev distribution site, bring them to a Shabbos at your local Chabad Center or maybe just have them visit with Reb Shlomo Bochner at Bonei Olam. We need to make a Kiddush Hashem which doesn't happen when we amplify the hate or the hater, or even if we attack them, but rather it happens by exposing them to the beauty of our lifestyle, the Chessed running through our veins, and by representing what it means to be an Am Kadosh, a holy nation, inspired at Sinai to illuminate the world.

Thank you Chai Lifeline & Camp Simcha Special!

May G-d guard our brethren in Israel and the world over from harm and send us Mashiach speedily. May G-d protect the armed forces of Israel and the United States wherever they may be!