Vatomer Devorah

“And she would sit under the date palm of Devorah…” (Shoftim 4:5)

The commentaries say that Devorah sat under a date palm to judge the people because it was a place of openness and transparency. The palm tree is straight and rises higher than other trees, its overarching height and unbranched trunk represent uprightness, truth and unity.

In the torah, the date palm is a symbol of blessing and fertility.

The date palm is evergreen, enduring drought and heat, it’s roots reaching deep to find water. It produces sweet, nourishing fruit even in desert conditions.

The date palm teaches patience. It grows slowly, taking many years to bear fruit, but once it does, it continues for generations.

According to Bamidbar Rabbah 3:1, The date palm is entirely beneficial. It provides dates to eat, branches for schach ,trunk for wood, fibers for ropes.

My intention in sharing this website- vatomardevorah.org, is to share all the date palm has to offer with you. A fertility journey can feel like wandering through a desolate and barren desert, making stop after stop, trying to find answers. That is where this date palm grew. In sharing my thoughts along this journey, I hope they can provide some much-needed resources, and to remind you of the promise written by David Hamelech/ King David: “The righteous shall flourish like the date palm” ( tehilim 92:12).

צדיק כתמר יפרח

My name is Devorah, and in recent years I read a book written by the Ramak, R’ Moshe Chaim Cordovaero, a page every day. The book is called Tomer Devorah. It is about the 13 attributes of Rachamim/mercy and how we can emulate the ways of Hashem. I had stopped reading it a while ago but picked up again after I started writing this blog that I called Vatomer Devorah. It reminded me of the book.

Rachamim is almost the same as the word Rechem (womb). In Hebrew when two words share the same root, they are intrinsically connected.

In Chassidic teachings, Rachamim (compassion) is the merging of judgement with kindness. The womb is the most tangible form of rachamim. It is enclosed and boundried, protecting the life inside it, while nurturing it with overflowing kindness. The intent of vatomerdevorah.org is to help restore this life- giving balance. It’s an accounting for the purpose of restoring sweetness and renewed life into a field where that is the stated goal: fertility care.

Restoring balance means putting both the Rechem (the womb) and rachamim (compassion) at the center of fertility care, so that it is patient centered- compassionate, curious, and progressive, rather than mechanistic.

In fertility care today, the womb is often overlooked, as people go through expensive and draining procedures, without accounting for underlying factors, like endometriosis and other uterine inflammation, even though they are common. They often come around to this after spending much money, time and energy. Getting back to a womb centered approach means applying the principles of rachamim, which is not only compassion, but also the merging of kindness with justice. It’s where underlying and root causes are used clinically as a basis for care.

It also means restoring the feminine principle of bina/discernment, where people can benefit from a full circle of professional knowledge and experience rather than assembly line thinking. In the torah, bina is also a reference to the womb. All of these concepts are found in the torah, and my experiences have led me to reconnect my roots to its living waters and fertile soil. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches that we find G-d in the obstacles that we encounter. That is where this date palm blossomed. And it is not just any date palm, it is a tree of life.