What I have learned thus far is never to give up on the dream of perfection.
This vision of perfection reverberates in my head and heart. In my younger days, I searched for perfection in the most unlikely of places – those farthest from it. Fifteen years ago, I did give up. I decided the best way to put out the fire was to decide it didn’t exist.
Just as I gave up, I arrived in Tsfat – and there it was…and still is. I see it flash in the eyes of a pure person, and I hear it in the sounds of singing on Friday night, in the weeping at the gravesite of a holy sage and in the noise of children playing in a school courtyard. Sometimes I experience it for a moment standing in line at the grocery store. I still can’t describe it exactly. It resists capture. And yet, since I came to this city, I have hope. And on good days, I have certainty that all the good the prophets spoke will come true. And during really good days, I am convinced that it will be in my lifetime, despite the raging contradictions in the world around me. Tsfat has reawakened the force of my Jewish soul.
Talya Lipshutz is the founder of Tsfat Development Corporation.
www.tsfat.com
