014 - 10th of Nissan - Dan & Teives

Day 10 of Nissan drops us straight into the heart of spiritual adulthood: can you live your life without leaving parts of yourself behind?

Today we explore the tribe of Dan and the month of Teives, and together, they bring us one of the most profound teachings of this journey:

Geulah is not about erasing your past. It’s about redeeming it.

Teives isn’t loud. It doesn’t sparkle. It’s the beginning of winter’s deepest quiet. The fast of the 10th of Teives marks the siege of Jerusalem—the moment before destruction. The fall hasn’t happened yet, but the pressure is building. Things feel stuck, unclear, heavy.

And yet… Teives is also the month Esther enters the palace. The beginning of the Purim story is planted right here, in this mess. You just can’t see it yet.

Teives holds the truth that redemption often begins in disguise.

Meanwhile, Dan was the tribe that traveled last when the Israelites moved through the desert. They were the ones who picked up whatever had been left behind—people, objects, sparks. Quiet, grounded, unwavering.

They didn’t leave anything behind.

And this… is where it gets personal.

I’m a software engineer. A business owner. An inspirational speaker. A Torah teacher. A mama. A mystic. A strategist. For years, I thought I had to choose between them. Like the “holy” version of me and the “creative, ambitious, curious” version of me couldn’t coexist.

It took years of inner work to understand:
Hashem doesn’t need you to be simple. He needs you to be whole.

To My Fellow Baalei Teshuva…

If you’re a baal teshuva, you probably know this tension well.

We often feel pressured (sometimes explicitly, but usually more sublty) to leave our “past lives” behind when we become observant.

And some of that "letting go" is powerful.

But at some point in your journey—you really do need to circle back...

To gather the parts of yourself you left behind out of fear or pressure.
To reclaim the strengths, gifts, and quirks that were never impure… they were just waiting to be integrated.

This is our own unique Geulah journey... When even the parts of your story you thought you had to abandon… become part of your offering to the world.