Are you one of those people who order the same dish again and again when eating out? Or do you prefer to try something new each time? Are you happily employed, or do you complain bitterly about the job you’ve had “forever,” while refusing to look for one that might bring you more satisfaction?
Change is an exciting challenge for some and a scary experience for others, especially when it comes to life decisions less mundane than a restaurant menu. Actually, personality development studies indicate that openness to new experiences, for both men and women, increases slightly until age 30 before going into a gradual decline. Where What When met with a few people in our greater community who braved change well beyond their thirties and, in the process, gave themselves a new lease on life.
A Principal Adjustment
Esther Schwarz was born and raised in Cleveland and had lived there her entire life – until she moved to Silver Spring, in her fifties. Little did this history teacher know, when she volunteered to teach a series of workshops at the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, her daughter’s high school, that she would be offered the position of assistant principal. Rabbi Zev Katz, the principal, wanted to hire her. The Schwarzes first got to know the Katz family when their daughter boarded in Silver Spring for two-and-a-half years.
Mrs. Schwarz agreed to take the job on two conditions: first, that her husband Avraham would find employment in the Silver Spring area, and second, that she would be allowed to travel back to Cleveland if her ailing father ever needed her. Six years ago, her husband was hired by the Vaad Harabbanim of Washington, and her married daughter, who had been living in Yerushalayim, happened to move back to Cleveland, and could help out with her father. So, Mrs. Schwarz took a giant leap of faith, and she has not regretted it for a moment.
“When we first came, I was so nervous,” admits Mrs. Schwarz. “Everything was so new; it was a very big adjustment. But it was a good move on our part. I love the Silver Spring community, and I love the Yeshiva. It is a real privilege to work here. The girls and the staff were so warm and welcoming.
“The hardest part was leaving my father,” says Mrs. Schwarz, who went back and forth to Cleveland to care for him, every two to three weeks until a year-and-a-half ago. “But he, as well as my married daughter who moved back to town, were encouraging. It was hard leaving my students, too. When they heard I was leaving, some of them were upset. After I moved, I sent them a picture of myself in front of the White House, with the caption, `This is me in front of my new apartment.’ They hung it up on their bulletin board.”
What advice does Mrs. Schwarz have for those who are challenged by life changes? “I think you have to daven for siyata d’Shmaya (Heavenly help),” advises Mrs. Schwarz, who asked roshei yeshiva for their advice. They told her to think the decision over carefully, before bentching (blessing) her with siyata d’Shmaya. “You have to know, also, that it is disorienting and hard in the beginning. You miss friends and family. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you don’t try, you won’t know. Most important, you should daven (pray) that Hashem should guide you.
“This was a big lesson in hashgacha pratis (divine providence),” Mrs. Schwarz believes. “Because my daughter boarded at the Yeshiva, Rabbi Idstein got to know her and made her shidduch. Also, my niece has since married and settled in Silver Spring. An additional bonus is living closer to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Jay and Robin Schwarz, in Baltimore. You see the yad Hashem in everything. It was an opportunity that Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent our way.”
The Big Move to the Big Apple
The Big Move to the Big Apple
Zivia Fuld has made several big changes since midlife. After being widowed, she moved to Baltimore and lived here for about 10 years. Then she remarried and moved to New York over a year ago.
The psychologist and life coach – known professionally as Paula Zivia Fuld, Ph.D. – had made on-and-off efforts to remarry but admits that she was holding out until the right man appeared. She decided to record serial readings from Rabbi Ezriel Tauber’s book, Thoughts for a Jewish Home, into Kol HaLoshon’s archive, where they would be accessible by phone at no charge. In part, she felt that this would be appropriate hishtadlus (effort), given her situation. “I hoped that in the zechus (merit) of my helping the women of our community improve their marriages through these readings, and through my coaching, Hashem would send me my zivug!
“Although this may not be true of all widows, I felt that I needed a husband in order to continue to grow in relation to the purpose of life,” explains Dr. Fuld, who continues to work with women from Baltimore and others by phone. As Rabbi Tauber says, marriage provides incredible opportunities to grow in dveikus (connection) with Hashem. As this is my main desire in life, I was prepared to make the sacrifices and to master the anxieties that arose.”
Dr. Fuld’s move, at age 60, from California to Baltimore, gave her some practice with a big move. “You learn how to pack and unpack boxes and how to choose colors and arrange furniture, but you can’t really practice developing a new relationship, because each relationship presents unique challenges and opportunities. The good part is that these challenges don’t show up at random but are prescribed with precision by Hashem, so that we can master them in accordance with our life’s purpose. When we can remember that this is the way our life is supposed to be, we feel a sense of excitement and pleasure, rather than confusion, worry, and anxiety, which diminish our energy and effectiveness.
“To make a new home for my husband in the house where he has been living for the past 30 years, I had to be willing to give up a sense of control,” admits Dr. Fuld. “But I also had to be willing to be more assertive! How would I know when to be mevater (yield) and when to be kenegdo (assertive)? I didn’t know. I asked Hashem for help at every turn, and I appreciated the reminder that I needed His help and could call upon Him. Baruch Hashem, my husband tipped me off that he thought we would do best if I were comfortable being assertive at times. I could see Hashem’s hand in this `tip,’ because I knew that I had some growing to do in this area.”
Dr. Fuld feels that people can make changes at any age. What advice would she give to a client who is having difficulty making a major change – such as a new job, going back to school, marriage, remarriage, or relocation, later in life?
“You are not without choice, ever,” she stresses. “In every new situation, there are gains and losses. Hashem is the One who put you into the situation in which you now find yourself, and He is the One who will give you what you need in order to accomplish what is best for you. It’s okay to feel frustrated or distressed; the gate of tears is never closed. And even when there are no tears and you simply feel `stuck,’ ask Him to help with that, as well.
“All Hashem wants is for us to do whatever hishtadlus is right for us, to ask His help and to thank Him when He provides it. Hashem should bless us with both the clarity to see His goodness to us, and the determination to keep growing closer to Him, wherever we are in life.”
Signing a New Lease on Life
Livia Shacter is the prototype of the determined person Dr. Fuld speaks about. This 93-year-old former Baltimore resident, and mother of WWW’s own editor, Elaine Berkowitz, made aliya just three months ago, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
“All my life, ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to make aliya,” Mrs. Shacter told me, in a phone conversation from her new home in Ramat Beit Shemesh. “Zionism was a big thing then; everyone wanted to be a Zionist and settle in Palestine. I was the only daughter and I had five brothers. We were all taught to speak Hebrew. Two of my brothers moved to Palestine – one in 1934 and one after the War, and one brother emigrated to America in 1939.”
Mrs. Shacter, who was born in Czechoslovakia, was taken to Aushwitz, together with her parents, two younger brothers, and her whole town, a few days before Shavuos, 1944. Her parents and one brothers were killed immediately. The second brother died during that year. She was the only one to survive, spending the year in Auschwitz and various slave labor camps. After the War, she and her husband came to the States with their baby, and settled in Los Angeles, where Mrs. Shacter’s brother lived. “I started visiting my two brothers in Israel in the ’60s. I was there 26 times,” she says with pride. “And every time I visited Israel, I went to the Kosel and to Yad V’Shem. I would go to Yad V’Shem, because it was my `cemetery,’ where I could pray for my parents.”
Mrs. Shacter worked for the Prudential Life Insurance Company until age 64, and after retirement, she volunteered at the Wiesenthal Center, a Holocaust museum in L.A. Three times a week, she told audiences about her personal experiences in the Holocaust. She was also sent to speak at schools, and once even spoke to 47,000 marines and their general at California’s Camp Pendleton. In 1997, she was featured in a film produced by the Center, “The Long Way Home,” which won the Oscar for best documentary.
Mrs. Shacter lived in L.A. for 53 years before moving to Baltimore, where she was an active senior and participated in the lives of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She also continued to speak at schools as a member of of the Baltimore Jewish Council’s Survivors Speakers Bureau. This April, she unfortunately fell and broke her hip. It was only after going through rehab at Levindale, and recuperating in her Baltimore daughter’s home, that Mrs. Shacter was finally convinced by her daughter in Israel to move in with her family in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Mrs. Shacter had actually considered Israel 10 years ago, at the age of 83, but it was too hard for her, and she decided to come to Baltimore, instead.
Now, with her new lease on life, Mrs. Shacter is doing great. She is surrounded by the family members who made aliya – her daughter and husband, three grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren, ka”h – that is, when she is not too busy with her knitting and reading (two activities she had given up for a while), physical therapy sessions, Holocaust speaking engagements, and going to Melabev – an activity group for older adults, which she enjoys four mornings a week.
“The nicest part of being here is that in the morning, when the bus picks me up to go to Melabev, I see so many children holding hands and going to school,” relates Mrs. Shacter. “It’s such a good feeling to see Jewish children. They are our future, to take the place of those who perished in the Holocaust.
“If you feel Jewish,” she concludes, “it is a wonderful thing to be with your own people, in your own land. Israel is the place to be; I know I made the right decision.”
© Margie Pensak-2010
