Another year... Looking back
My Tu Bishvat birthday
I just had my Gregorian birthday… and it hit me in a way I didn’t expect.
We tell ourselves a number is just a number.
That every year is a gift.
That we should celebrate the small miracles that find us along the way.
In fact, the Rebbe tell us a birthday is to be celebrated. He taught that birthdays are significant, a personal "Rosh Hashanah" for reflection, introspection, and increasing good deeds. In fact, he encouraged everyone to mark the day with enhanced Torah study, charity, and special prayers. He viewed it as a day when one’s personal "mazel" (fortune) is stronger.
And I really do try….But sometimes, quietly, the thought creeps in:
More chapters are written than unwritten now.
And layered on top of that — the world feels louder, heavier, more uncertain than ever. It’s hard to tell where my personal fears end and the global ones begin.
So I stopped. Took that pause. I looked back.
Not that long ago, I was the girl who barely wanted to say her own name out loud. The one who tore up her Columbia University diploma on camera, taking a risk, unsure if anyone would even care.
And somehow — through a purpose I didn’t create on my own — I was pulled forward. From silence to speaking. From staying quiet to showing up. From anonymity to telling the truth as I see it, every single day.
Now my life is about searching.
Reading deeper.
Questioning louder.
Sharing what I believe isn’t being said — even when it’s uncomfortable.
Being born on Tu BiShvat, the “new year of the trees,” reminds me of something simple and powerful: growth doesn’t happen overnight. Roots form in the dark before anything ever reaches the light.
So on Tu Bishvat, my Hebrew birthday, I plant trees in honor of the people who’ve stood with me — here and beyond this screen.
And if you believe this voice might matter to someone else…
Share it.
Send it.
Invite them to follow on my social medias and here on Substack.
BECAUSE I’m not done asking questions. Not even close.
And I’m not done telling the story.
Happy secular Birthday Dori! Keep speaking out and help people be cognizant of the truths. to 120!
Thank you, Dori. You inspire us all. We all should strive to do what we can, when we can. I've always felt that when you were put in a position to help someone, you do it immediately and without thinking. It is in these moments, I believe, that we are doing what we are called to do by that "still, small voice within us," our higher calling. A rabbi of mine once wrote a book whose title was "There is no g-d, and you're it." Although a somewhat controversial title, it means what I described; only hashem can see the big picture, it's above our pay grade but if we do what we have been called on to do - that is indeed hashem's work.