Rucheli Berry

Sent to Work by the Rebbe – Pt 3 – “The Offer”

Note: This is part of a series! Click HERE to start at the beginning or HERE to read the last installment…

The next week of my life was a complete whirlwind. My last days as a single woman, my family flying into Brooklyn for the wedding, finally seeing my Chosson for 5 seconds before I was veiled, finally seeing him again as my husband this time, dancing for hours upon hours, and the most insane week of Sheva Brachos you’ve ever heard of. All stories for another time…

But this story is about the Rebbe “sending” me to work, and so suffice it to say that I was very anxious during Sheva Brachos to hear back from my interview at UBM. And eventually I did. They wanted me to come in for a second interview (always a good sign), and we set a date for a few days after our arrival in Morristown.… Read the rest

Sent to Work by the Rebbe – Pt 2 – “The Interview”

Note: This is part of a series! Click HERE to start at the beginning…

Flash forward one week to Shabbos in Crown Heights. Our last Shabbos together before the wedding. We were down to the last 24 hours that we could see each other before being separated the week before the ceremony. It was towards the end of Shabbos and after a nice lunch at the Dubovs that went until Shabbos ended, I was waiting around for my Chosson to return from evening services so we could make Havdala (the end-of-Shabbat service) and spend one last evening together before we couldn’t see each other anymore. I spent my spare moments at the Dubov house the same way I always did… perusing the massive bookshelves. I came across a book of Letters written by the Lubavitcher Rebbe about having faith. “I could use a boost in Bitachon,” I thought to myself with my joblessness and crazy bride problems on the back of my mind.… Read the rest

Stone-cutters and Springboards

Beshalach I think I’m pretty lucky. Thank G-d. I have an amazing husband, an awesome job with a great boss, a nice apartment in the heart of the Chabad world, a supportive family, caring friends… Yet despite all of this, I sometimes get a little voice in the back of my head. A voice that tells me, “things would be even better if…”

“Is engineering REALLY what I’m supposed to be doing with my life?”
“I wish I could learn like I did in Seminary… I miss that.”
“I would be so much happier if I had more time/money/inspiration in my life.”
“It would be so much nicer to just write/speak/travel for a living.”

I recently read a story in one of Dr. Abraham Twerski’s books. It’s a bedtime story, so it takes a little bit of imagination, but it has a great lesson. This is my own little rendition:

Once upon a time, there was a man.

… Read the rest

Sent to Work by the Rebbe – Pt 1 – “Yud Shevat Shenanigans”

It was three weeks before our wedding and I was starting to freak out. We had already decided that we were going to live in Morristown, NJ so that he could attend the Kollel (Judaic studies program for newly married men) there at the Rabbinical College of America… which essentially left the ball of making ends meet completely in my court.

I had been working the last few months at Chabad.org and I loved every day. It’s an amazing organization on a mission that I identified with passionately, especially since I “grew up” (spiritually speaking) by getting lost in link-to-link wormholes of inspiring articles on the site for sometimes hours at a time. But the downsides of working in any not-for-profit educational organization on a tight budget are always the same… money is always short and staff positions are always needed but rarely fundable. So unfortunately, as much as I would have loved to stay involved and gone full-time in my position, it wasn’t an option.… Read the rest

Hitting the Restore Button

This Sunday I sat down at my computer to write about new beginnings. It’s Shabbos Bereishis this week after all, where we start the Torah anew. And one of my birthday/new years resolutions was to start writing again (which I’m running late on). Unfortunately, the cosmic forces that be (i.e. G-d) had other plans with how I would spend my sliver of free time that evening…

You see, it all started a few weeks ago when a dear friend of mine asked me to help her make a website. Despite the abundance of free time I have (facetiously speaking), I agreed, since it was for a good cause. It’s a website that encourages girls (almost all of them religious from birth) to learn in honor of Reb Sholom Mordechai haLevi ben Rivkah, aka Sholom Rubashkin. The hope is that all of the good deeds and positive resolutions and words of Torah will go to his merit in the heavenly courts so that the earthly ones will be forced to lighten his sentence and make it fair.… Read the rest

Five Years Ago…

(Speech given on Shabbat at the National Jewish Retreat in Weston, FL on August 4th, 2012)

Five years ago, I was an atheist. And not just your normal, run-of-the-mill, “I’m too cool/modern/educated to believe in G-d,” kind of atheist. If there is such a thing, I was a devout atheist. I preached atheism. Science and technology were bred into me and it didn’t take many years into my childhood for me to come to the firm conclusion that between physics, mathematics, biology, and chemistry, science had a completely reasonable and logical explanation for absolutely everything. Religion on the other hand, was confusing at best and was a manmade concoction of children’s stories at worst. Passover was spent with my mom’s family one weekend and Easter was spent with my dad’s family the next. Winter in my house growing up was characterized by a pine tree topped with blue and white ornaments, aka “the Chanukah bush.” Needless to say, when I arrived at the University of Central Florida as a freshman going into aerospace engineering, learning more about Judaism was just about the last thing on my mind.… Read the rest

“Where have you been?!”

Aaaaand we’re back. Notice the plural That’s right, I’ve finally gotten my site back up and running and married/working life has calmed down just enough to allow for a little bit of writing time. Baruch Hashem. But before we get back to some real content, I think it’s worthwhile to address some FAQs!

Q) WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!
A) A little busy! This whole getting married, getting a full time job, trying to run the household, keeping to (and upping) my adherence to very demanding Jewish law, having guests over, attempting to get more than 4 hours of sleep thing hasn’t left too much time over for much of anything! Combine that with the fact that one of the sites on my server was the victim of a targeted hack that took my whole folder offline… and that makes up a pretty big void to fill.

Q) So how are you back now?… Read the rest

Why I Haven’t Been Blogging

I sat down to write a blog about why I haven’t been blogging. It ended up sounding more like a monologue than a piece of actual literature, and I figured… why not?

So here it is, the reason I haven’t been blogging, presented to you in my very first “vlog” on youtube. Hope you enjoy!… Read the rest

Shabbos with N’Shei

I know I’ve been out of the loop for a while, and hopefully (G-d willing), I’ll have a chance to soon catch everyone up to what’s been going on in my life lately. Unfortunately, that time is not yet now. However, I did want to send a HUGE shout and THANK YOU to all of the amazing girls and women that I had the pleasure of meeting at the N’Shei uBnos Chabad convention this Shabbos in Miami Beach. I had the distinct privilege of speaking during shalosh seudos (third meal) and I feel SO blessed at having such an incredible opportunity!!

If any of you were there, I would love to keep in touch! Please feel free to use the contact form here and I’ll email back as soon as I can! Hope to hear from you all soon!

~Rucheli… Read the rest

Alter Rebbe Blues

Continuing with the Optical Illusions theme from last week… Here’s a similar picture of the Alter Rebbe this time. The directions are the same: stare at the dot in the middle of the picture. Try not to blink or move your gaze anywhere. After about 20 seconds, the picture will change from blue to black and white, but if you focused well then you should see the Alter Rebbe in an eerily lifelike color! (While I don’t normally recommend sitting close to your screen, if you’re having problems seeing the color, it might help.) Try it out and then read on after the illusion for some interesting Kabbalah on the color blue!

So I explained last week why the color blue is being used for these illusions… Essentially it’s the “negative” of skin tone, so that’s what gives the after image the correct coloring. But the color blue has some pretty interesting associations in Judaism also (besides making the Alter Rebbe look incredibly like a smurf, lehavdil).… Read the rest

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