Good Vibes Eps 1. Grace, Grit, and Good Vibes: What Eishes Chayil Really Means

Welcome to Good Vibes, the podcast that brings the timeless beauty of Asia Kyle into the rhythm of real life. Each week, we unpack one puzzle, not as a shear, but as a spark for honest conversations, refreshing insights, and a little tower light you can carry with you. Because meeting shouldn't feel heavy. And connection doesn't have to wait for quiet. This is good vibes for the Jewish woman who's doing a lot and still reaching deeper. Hi everyone and welcome to our first official episode of the good vibes podcast. Last time in our intro episode I shared how this podcast came to be. I was very eager to really know what it is to be an asshy after seminary. I wanted to see what the pukim taught us. So I started looking into it and gaining really practical and eye- openening lessons. Every episode we will have a guest to share with us their insights and practical tools regarding the topic at hand. We will hear from our audience and we hope we can answer their questions as well. So today we're going to be discussing ALF. So the isser translates to who can find a woman of valor? She is more precious than pearls. We know this puk. We even might call this puk famous. It's something that we say every week on Friday night on chabas. But when I first read this and when I was first looking into it, my biggest question was what is anious kyle which we hope and you know throughout this podcast we're going to learn the in-depth details of that in the future episodes but what is the overarching definition of an isky? What is the sky that we're we're striving to be? So today we have Mrs. schoolmaker. She is a teacher and a lecturer here in Isisrael and she is a longtime teacher in Mlalah and she gives woman vadim around Jerusalem as well. Thank you so much Mrs. Schmoomaker for being here. >> My pleasure. Such an honor to be here and honor to approach the first puzzmaker was really really foundational with making this podcast happen. So it is just very apppropo that she is here on our first puzzle. So, thank you again, Mrs. Goomaker. I guess maybe we can start off with what do you think about when you hear the words as Kyle? What is kind of like the summary of an asyle or the definition, the go-to phrase that you think of when you think of as Kyle? >> Okay, I have a very specific way of looking at it and it's my own individual interpretation, but when I think of the concept of Kyle, I think of like the strength that comes with being a soldier. And I think that a woman who is really like that that pillar of strength fighting for the security and the happiness of her home and that's what comes to mind. >> That's so interesting. So practically how do you think that kind of pans out practically? How do we see that kind of play out in real life? How is that something that we can strive to? >> So let's look at a little bit of context. Is that in the Torah when Hashem puts Adam and Kava in the Torah tells us ADA Shamra and some of the Mafarim say that La Avda is the man and the Shamra is the woman. So she is the protector. She is the guarder of her home. So she is guarding this home with this like you know protective nature and that is part of her strength is really being vigilant and being aware of what's going on in her home both emotionally, spiritually, even physically. This is a very big important point. The Gamaramos also backs this up by saying below isa that a man without a wife does not have a protective wall and the is the woman. So she is this like strong protective person who is really taking responsibility for a lot of things in her home. I want to just comment that theos that says without a protective wall there are two words in lashes for a wall. There's a k and there's a hom k shares the same shes as kor which means cold and homa shares the shish of home which is warm heat. So this protective wall is a wall of warmth. And I'll give a very practical example that when a woman wants to make her home the place to be. She could either use the core method which is you don't want to go out there. The world there is dangerous and all kinds of temptation. Stay home. Or she could say this is the place to be. This is the place of warmth and here is where all your needs are provided for. Here's where you're understood. This is the place where you we want to be. And I think it's not for not that Kazal uses Russian of Homa because she's vigilant, she's protective, but she uses her feminine warmth to create that protection for her family. >> That's so beautiful. I when you said that when you said home and car something that I heard a while back was that you know when it's freezing and you're let's say shopping on the streets and every time you go into a store you're like so excited to go into the heat and your hands are almost falling off and you're so excited to like just be in front of a heater and that feeling of when you are so cold coming into a place that that is what our homes should represent and that is what we should strive our homes to be. We want to be the place where our kids and our husbands want to come in so desperately out of the cold quote unquote of the world and come back into our home. And I think that that's like very apppropoent. It's actually in the puzz where it says pinm it's so interesting that the puzz chooses that specific comparison to a pearl. Like I think almost all of us would agree rather diamonds than pearls at least today. So why does the puzzle compare to a pearl? So, I learned that the way that the pearl is actually made is that it's shut in a clam all the way down deep in the bottom of the ocean. And that the clam's job, what happens is that the clam has to make sure that no deterrents, nothing comes inside. It's clamped shut literally and it has all these mechanisms to make sure that nothing comes inside. And if something comes inside, so then the pearl is ruined. And the clam's job is to keep closed so that we can make sure that this pearl is able to develop and actually be like the most beautiful pearl. And that is exactly what our role is. That is exactly what our job is, you know. And again in we're going to define more of that as the go on, as the episodes go on. But our overarching role I guess like a summary that I think of is be this pearl be this clam to create this pearl of creating a creating a boundary being strong like a kyle to make sure that nothing comes in and be able to produce this pearl of yourself of your home of your family of kalisol that your part in kalisol and so interesting Mrs. maker that you mentioned both a and a because it it both of those to me reflect strength and both of those reflect having to I think we sometimes assume that an ish is kyle is simply adal which we strive for adal kite I think that's amazing but we also simultaneously have this strength and being able to have this strength of standing up straight and having a and being a of serving hashem and keeping the clam shut, quote unquote, to create the pearl of our home. Doing that and doing it gracefully, I feel like is is what we're what we're aiming for, what our goal is. >> Beautiful. Exactly. Exactly. >> So, what would you say to a girl who might feel like this is so not up her alley? Me, maybe she just got engaged and she feels like this is going to come so not naturally to her. What advice do you have or how how would you recommend her to approach this? So I'm going to say that part of what happens let's say for the girl who gets engaged who's getting married is that part of the and part of the is moving from one way thinking to three-way thinking. One way thinking is what's good for me and when the person transitions into marriage that transitions into three-way thinking which is what's good for me what's good for him and what's good for the marriage. Now the marriage doesn't have a voice of its own. Somebody has to advocate for the marriage and speak up for the marriage. And here part of being that strong iso is that we really can think about things in a much wider way than just what's good for me. I'll give an example. There's a concept called a marital collusion. And a marital collusion is when you do something that's good for you and it's good for him, but it's not necessarily good for the marriage. So I'll give a very simple example which is that if I like to uh vacation in a certain location and he likes to vacation in another location well I can go to my location he can go to his good for him good for me not good for the marriage and there are many many marital collusions which is why we turn from one way thinking to three-way thinking not two-way thinking because sometimes there's something called the super parent collusion which is okay I'm going to invest all my efforts into the children and you're going to like understand that I don't have time for you because I'm busy with the kids and you're going to do the same thing and we'll meet up in 25 years when everybody's like grown up but that's occlusion which is not good for the marriage and therefore the asyle she's really strong she's able to think about her own needs which is a very important piece in this whole story but also his needs and the marriage needs and she uses her bina to really look at something from a much wider perspective and that's what makes her so strong. >> That's so interesting. I think that often I I I like that you brought in this idea of that the marriage needs a spokesperson because I think that often we think okay yeah I need to think about my needs I need to think about his needs and and down the line I need to think about the children's needs but like you said if we just think about our needs just think about his needs and even just think about the children's needs if we don't put our marriage in the forefront then we're not setting ourselves up for success like you said putting our marriage's voice having a spokesperson for the marriage itself is so crucial for the develop ment of the marriage for the marriage to start off in one place when you got married and every year every 5 years every every day is a progress but to eventually be able to look back and say you know my marriage is at a place where I wanted I was able to be the is that I I was striving to be another thing that I I always think about this for myself is you know we know that it says vavi mishkan right that inside of us there's a mishkan there's a we know that we were created with aik elk And within me as an individual, I can be a mishkan. I can be a form of a bamedash. And we know that between husband and wife and a home in and of itself is also a mikdash. And then there's the the real bamedash that we want to help partake bring in this world. And what I find is that there's so many times where an issu will fall into one of these three categories of a mcdashim. either working on my own self and creating a place within myself that can be a mikdash mat creating a mikdash maat in my home and being part of the community and the bigger picture at large to be able to bring the ba mikdash >> beautiful >> Mrs. Gummager, do you have anything to add to share with us about what a woman's role is? Why Hashem put us in this world and how that ties in with being an Asia Kyle? >> So I think that there is a lot to say about the woman's role in the marriage itself. And I think that when we look the Maharal says that if you look at where the woman was created from, she was created from an inner organ of Adam. That's where Kava was created from. And it teaches us that she is the master of inner realities which means that she sometimes reads between the lines and picks up things that the man might be very very intelligent. He may have a very high IQ but she was gifted with binera and binera is lavindar to understand the things that are not being said and this is a very very big point of what she offers to the family. I I always bring this funny example. It's not so funny, but you can have a child who's complaining every morning of stomach aches, and the husband may say, "I think we should take the child to a gastro specialist, and the wife might say, I wonder if someone's bullying him in school." Now, he didn't say anything about bullying, but she's reading between the lines. It always comes up in the morning. The stomach is the place that often holds anxiety, and she's wondering what's not being said. And there is where she is the master of inner realities and she offers that to the to the marriage. You know when the Torah tells us the cynics might say man had no one to iron his shirts and make him good chocolate chip cookies so he needed a wife. But our answer to that is that this kak was said when Adam and Kava were in Ghanaeden and there was no food being cooked. There was no clothing that needed to be washed or ironed. There was no washing of the floor. There was no physical responsibilities in Gaden. And in that context, she was created as an Azer connectto, which means that whatever she's offering to the relationship has a lot to do with her intellect, her emotional world. She's supporting him in ways that are much greater. Her support, her major auggo is way beyond the physical needs. The physical needs are part of what creates the home and the warmth and the protection that our needs are met on the physical level too. But what you're really offering is a lot of her intuition, her emotional understanding of things and that's where she really contributes a lot to the relationship. So this is uh something very very important to keep in mind that the Azerdo is you know I I once read that it's like it's two very skilled people. When you say a connetodo and the word help on one level people thank their cleaning lady for the help on the other level you thank the very very specialized cardiologists for his help so is the woman is she on top of it with the help is she below it with the help and the pus is telling you is connect facing him it's like two highly skilled people who work together like the pilot and the navigator or the surgeon and the anesthesiologist they both are very very very skilled in their area and they work together as like a attack team and that's really the Asia sky. She's very powerful and she contributes tremendously to the relationship with her strengths. >> That's beautiful. I think that is so um telling that Hashem decided to create Kava in Ganen in a place like you said that there was no physical needs. there was nothing that needed to be done but obviously Adam still needed Kava for the deeper reasons and Adam still needed an Azerdo to be there with him. What would you say? You know, I think that a lot of times we think, you know, why why were we created? We were created to serve Hashem. But as as an isha, as a female and not a male, what is my tough? What is my number one role? Is it to raise children? Is it to be a wife? Is it to just generally bring the shina closer into our lives? >> I think the answer is all of those things that when I bring the best me to the table, I am also the best wife and the best mother. And I I our role as woman has a lot to do with the vicarious accomplishments. Meaning that when I create the right atmosphere and my husband can maximize his potential and my children can maximize their potential. So that's a lot of my definition. But that doesn't negate my own personal voice to Hashem. It just means that there are stages in life where sometimes we look and say I haven't been dominiting so much recently. I haven't been learning so much recently. I'm so busy cleaning for BA. I forgot what pesak is really all about and I'm so busy making food for rashana that I'm don't even have time for chuva and the answer is that a lot of our strength is through what we facilitate and you know of course our own personal hashem is very very important and it makes us that rich person with a rich inner world of abus hashem but at times when you feel like h what am I accomplishing anyway we have to remember that when we create the beautiful environment for people to flourish the goes back to us for their accomplishments as well. >> That's so nice. And I I think that like what you're saying about, you know, that when we show up as our best selves, individual, wife, mother, then we're it's kind of like this package deal. And going back to the beginning when you were saying that a comes from from the le of comes from the le of strength, putting up that boundary of warmth and the strength of a of a soldier. I feel like it's it's after you know having this conversation with you. I feel like it's hinting towards being this hayal over yourself for and you know you as an individual within your home for your spouse and within your home for your children and within the larger community. And it kind of goes back to the three different levels of the of the buty mcdasham that I was talking about and really taking it upon ourselves to being an asyle is not is not just being there for our husbands whenever we need it. It's so much broader than that and it's showing up as our best selves for whatever may come our way >> completely. I want to also share with you that when I think of like the whole concept of being a soldier, I think about a lot of what it is really living for a bigger cost. And you know, I think now we have a war going on. And I hear from women who tell me about their sons who like sleep in their boots and wear the same socks like for days and days and and the mother will tell me this is a son who used to shower every day and was instinct on everything. But he is living for this bigger cause and he's sometimes giving up on his personal comfort for the sake of something bigger. But he doesn't feel taken advantage of. He doesn't feel resentful. He feels like, "Yeah, I'm committed to the cause." And part of the strength is that stretching. And I feel that we as women do the same. Whether it's that you're tired and a baby's crying and you get out of bed or sometimes in an argument, the ability to just be the bigger person or to forgive somebody for making a mistake. All this is sacrificing sometimes our personal comfort for a much bigger picture. and not in this resentful uh I'm a doormat type of way, but more like I have a big picture and I'm that who could just be the bigger person and um that resilience and the perseverance that comes with being a soldier. That's really what the is to me. It's somebody who has a bigger picture and she's strong and part of her strength is her ability to tolerate discomfort sometimes physical, sometimes emotional in exchange for the bigger cause and she and she's proud of herself. >> What is our bigger picture? I know that every couple, every individual is going to have uh their own bigger picture, but speaking to the masses, what is the bigger picture of an Asia? You know the same way that the kayal has a bigger picture of why you know they're fighting this war and why they're part of kalis for you know fighting for kal is what is an as ky's bigger picture so there's a gumar in Sanhedrin where we learn this from we learn this actually from the negative it's actually a sad and raand person who loses his wife during his lifetime the world got dark for him. And then it goes on to say which means that his steps get smaller and his good kind of is destroyed. So we learn from this from the negative what he lost. We learned what the wife actually did provide ado the world got dark for him. We learn from here that the Asia sky provides light for her home. And um I once a very beautiful interpretation of from the safer raha that says like this. What does it mean? He goes out to the outside world after he sits sh and the sun is shining. It's not a dark world but there's two types of light in this world. There's a light of the sun and there's a light of a candle. The light of the sun represents a universal sun which doesn't shine on one person more than the other. And in that sense, he's still part of a light world. People will say, "Oh, he's a nice guy. He's a good guy." But what he lost was somebody who used to shine a candle on him and know his specific strengths and like make him shine. She would like know things about him that the world didn't know. So even though the universal light is still there, the individual light is not there anymore. And what the Asia style does is she builds up the self-esteem and the awareness of the her loved ones knowing their strengths and feeling proud of what they have to provide to the world. And therefore, she's spreading a special light on them. When we say wrote that his steps got shorter after his wife died, he used to walk confidently with big strides and now he's walking not as confidently. And because she understood him and you know encouraged him and gently led him even in a very sensitive feminine way he was confident he was able to like know his mission in the world and the garra says he used to get such good advice from her and he doesn't have that anymore. So these are the different things that the sky is offering her home. >> That's so interesting. I I think that from what you've told us today, the way that now I look at what an assh I first of all I look at this puk almost like as and then like a semicolon and that theim after this puk are going to teach us so much more about the makeup of an asyle and what it is that an askyle practically the tools and the tasks and the and the perspectives and the midos that an askyle holds. But this puzz taught us what the overarching theme of what an asshy is. An assh a soldier, one who builds a a wall of warmth around her home. Who is a clam creating pearls, who is somebody who does not let what is not wanted in her home, in her dalad amos, within herself, her husband, her family, her home. And like you said, somebody who is a light onto their home and and a light onto themselves to be their best selves on a light onto their husbands to encourage their husbands, a light onto their home, and a light onto their community. >> Beautiful. Beautiful. So well said, so well summarized. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Mrs. Scoomaker, for joining us and being part of this inaugural episode. Please reach out and email us with any questions or thoughts. We would love to hear from you. Thanks for joining us and stay tuned for some more good vibes.