The Women Who May Bring Moshiach

I don’t connect with women easily.

I never have.

I’m an only child. I moved constantly as an immigrant and refugee. Most of my life, friendships with women my age felt distant. Surface level. If I’m honest, I usually avoided them. I assumed that’s just who I was.

Then this week happened. Fourteen women. 5 days.

Different generations. Different backgrounds. Married women. Divorced women. Some single. Some mothers. Women celebrating. Women grieving. Women carrying impossible dreams. Women carrying unbearable pain.

The only thing we truly shared was our love of G-d and our desire to grow.

The retreat itself was created by a powerhouse woman name Naomi, the founder of Astro Torah. She has this rare ability to weave Torah, Kabbalah, Jewish astrology, wisdom, and deep spiritual work into something that feels ancient, ancestral, and completely alive. She doesn’t simply teach, she invites you to awaken parts of yourself that always existed but maybe needed a little waking.

And then there was Shely.

Watching her was like watching a butterfly. She is the creator of the Shely Method, a gifted somatic and trauma healer, and a brilliant student of Kabbalah. Her soul seemed to learn how to dance before her body did. She reminded me that feminine energy isn’t something you perform. It’s something you surrender to. Something you divinely fall into. She showed me that movement can become prayer.

The first few days were beautiful.

But around the fourth day…something shifted.

Maybe it was the Kabbalah or maybe it was the learning. Maybe it was the beach strolls, the yoga, the sound healing, the late night conversations that left mascara running down our faces.

Whatever it was…the walls disappeared.

Our stories began weaving together. Not in some abstract spiritual way but in a deeply human one.

Someone else’s joy became my joy and someone else’s heartbreak became my heartbreak.I felt it all. We felt it all.

We celebrated each other without envy. We cried without embarrassment. We stopped showing each other our polished selves and started offering each other our real ones.

Somewhere along the way, fourteen women became one living heartbeat. One divine breath.

And when it came time to leave, none of us wanted to.

Of course I missed my husband, he is my heart and best friend. And I literally could not wait to wrap my arms around my children.

But I also couldn’t imagine leaving these women.

I care about what happens to them now. I want to celebrate every victory. I want to sit beside them through every loss. Watch their children grow. I want to build with them and pray for them…I have begun praying for them.

Now, for the first time in my life, I understand something I’d heard other women describe…SISTERHOOD.

Not friendship. Sisterhood.

Then I thought about another woman in our group, my roommate for this retreat. This beautiful South African woman named Yael (Louisa) founded a nonprofit called 27 Women, a collective built around a beautifully simple idea… bring women around one table to talk honestly about life, wisdom, struggle, and solutions and not just for themselves, but for the world.

A week ago, I would’ve thought that sounded idealistic. Today, I think she may be onto something.

Our sages teach that righteous women will play a central role in bringing Moshiach.

Maybe this is part of what that looks like. Not louder voices. Not bigger platforms with more followers. Not financial influence.

But women so deeply rooted in Hashem that they have nothing left to prove and everything left to give.

Women who are willing to open their hearts before they open their mouths. Women who choose curiosity over competition. Women who carry each other instead of comparing themselves to each other.

Gorgeously different women.

Completely different stories. All serving and anchoring into one G-d. One people. One shared purpose.

Maybe redemption doesn’t only arrive through miracles. Maybe it also arrives one table at a time. One conversation at a time. One woman choosing to see another woman’s soul.

If enough of us learn how to do that… maybe we won’t just be waiting for redemption.

Maybe we will be the ones creating space for it.