Life With the Rich and Famous

Molly enjoyed her enviable position, but after years of encountering celebrities, her bubble burst. "Once, during a difficult interaction with an agent for a certain celebrity, I suddenly saw these glamour people in a different light. The superstar was just a pawn in the hands of his managers, and couldn't venture an opinion about his own life. It hit me that being rich and famous didn't mean you found the key to happiness or had common sense. In real life, they were only human with all the normal weaknesses and frailties."

Molly took a leave of absence to embark on a worldwide search for spirit and meaning. She assembled a travel itinerary and letters of recommendation from her celebrity friends, even an introduction to Marlon Brando, in his private island in the Pacific Ocean.

On a jaunt to Rio she had a critical encounter with the Chief Rabbi, the late Yerachmiel Blumenfield, who invited Molly to Shabbat dinner. In spite of her agnostic skepticism, Molly was persuaded to light Shabbat candles, and she became mesmerized by the beauty and intelligence of the rabbi's daughter Chana, who showed Molly a photo of her obviously religious fiancé, bearded and black-hatted. Molly's response was one of incredulity "How can you tell him apart? They all look the same! You don't want to spend the rest of your life being pregnant every year, cooking chicken soup and praying behind a curtain," she decried, "Come I'll help you run away!" She offered the young bride to be.

Chana insisted that she happily and freely chose this lifestyle. This was hard for Molly to digest. "She picked me up the next day and I called out, "You mean they let you go out and drive? Aren't they afraid you'll run away?" For three days the sophisticated producer bombarded Chana with questions about observant life. Why this? How come that?

As a political science student Molly was enamored with the American Constitution. "To me it was the epitome of justice and wisdom. I then realized that the Torah, my people's 'Constitution' was not just 200, but thousands of years old. I had dabbled in every 'ism' - Hinduism, Buddhism, you -name-it, but I knew so little about my own heritage."

"It was like falling in love. I had finally found the answer and meaning. I realized that our world had a G-d and purpose." Molly returned to New York ready to learn and grow with Judaism. "I gave up the 5 things I loved most- shrimp, lobster, pork, (non-kosher) caviar and champagne, and lit Shabbat candles regularly."

Each week she visited another observant family for Shabbat. She found the Lubavitchers to be warm, intelligent and most accepting. Eventually, Molly's observance grew to Shabbat, kosher, and dating only Jewish men interested in marriage.

She felt it was a mistake to leave marriage to whimsy. "We should put the same effort into finding and choosing our mates as we do in planning our careers." A friend arranged her first shidduch (match) with the man who became her husband. Molly smiles. "Even my mother forgave me when she found out the religious young man I was bringing home was a Harvard doctor." Dr. Lawrence Resnick, an expert in hypertension who is today a Professor of Medicine at Cornell in Manhattan, was then the Lubavitcher Rebbe's personal physician.

Molly continued her work at NBC for several years. Her new ways met with mixed responses of cynicism and admiration. "G-d is almost a three letter word among the self-declared intelligentsia circles- to some I'd become a fanatic, a fundamentalist! Others praised me for the almost extinct quality of dedication to my beliefs.

As her family grew to include three children, Molly's priorities shifted and she left NBC, devoting herself to homemaking and the less rigorous schedule of freelancing. But what about her former feminist credo? Initially, the woman's lack of active participation in some aspects of Jewish services had bothered her. "But, I've come to see that women play an even greater role. Women set the tone in the home, determine the quality of family life and the education of the children. It's trivial to worry over separate seating in the synagogue. When we pray, G-d is our focus, not socializing."

Motherhood and growing spiritual sensitivity also changed her former pro-choice outlook. "Children are a blessing, and life is sacred from conception- unless the mother's life is in danger." But how did she give up life in the fast-lane to spend more time at home with the kids home? "Judaism values women as the mainstay of the home. It is hard to be the CEO of a major corporation and the CEO of your family and succeed at both. Family is only a sacrifice when we think of a career as more important."

"In Hebrew," Molly explains," the name of the first woman is Chava, which means the mother of all things. Chava is the epitome of nurturing. A woman is a nurturer, a quality our world so desperately needs."

Summing up the difference between her secularism and embrace of Judaism, Molly extols the depth, beauty and joy of getting in touch with one's inner self- the Jewish essence. The worldly success she once pursued is shallow compared to the depth of Jewish living.

She finds her self-definition has radically changed. "I used to define myself as first and foremost a woman, a journalist, an Israeli, an American, a liberal, and a humanist. And somewhere, I was also Jewish, but that meant little to me." Now, she puts the Jewish part first. This priority is essential to "having it all," she says.

The fiery spirit that drove Molly up the career ladder and fueled her quest for truth has found a new outlet. Combining her journalistic savvy with the concern of a Jewish mother, Molly now fights the indoctrination of Palestinian children into Jew haters.

Sophia Loren and Molly In 1998, Molly and several friends formed MATCKH -Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill and Hate. They use the proven combination of media blitz and mothers, modeled after MADD, Mother's Against Drunk Driving. "We copied MADD because that grassroots organization changed the laws of the land, and our cause is no less urgent. Today Arab Palestinian direct their hatred against Israelis and Jews in the Middle East, tomorrow it will be Americans right here in our own back yard. Grabbing headlines with an informational forum, letters to the press, and contact with politicians, MATCKH exposes the constant hate featured on Palestinian television, songs, and in school textbooks and summer camps.

"If the Palestinians are taught from the time they are four years old that Israelis are vermin, it is easy for them to kill." Molly cites a Palestinian textbook that uses anti-Semitism in its 5th grade grammar lessons" 'Define the subject and predicate in the following sentence: "It is the duty of every Moslem, man and woman to launch Jihad (holy war) against the Jews." Another time bomb is a poem "The Martyr" which extols the virtue of children becoming suicide warriors.

Molly now visits schools and youth clubs around the country to encourage children to write letters for peace that are assembled into colorful quilts. "Dear Palestinian," one reads, "Don't hate me just because I'm Jewish. I don't hate you."

On October 4th, Chol Hamoed Succot, students will display their quilts at a massive rally that MATCKH is planning at the steps of the Capitol in Washington DC. under the auspices of several congressional leaders. Summing up her activism, Molly states, "I do not have have illusions of grandeur that I can solve the world's troubles. On one hand there are deeply ingrained problems, and on the other, G-d can change the whole scenario in a second. However, I can't rest without using my G-d given talents and skills to at least do my part."


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