Action Matters

Why Movement Comes Before Miracles

The Israeli Innovation Center at the Peres Center for Peace & Innovation located in Jaffa, Israel

I didn’t have the year I wanted. I had the year I needed. And those two things are rarely the same.

If you’ve ever heard that a beautiful garden requires rain - real rain, the kind that soaks the soil and snaps weak branches - then you already understand this year.

It didn’t mist. It poured.

This was the kind of year that stripped you down to the studs. Not metaphorically - structurally. The kind of year that removes what’s decorative, unnecessary, and hollow until all that’s left is what can actually hold weight. It isn’t a year you post about. It’s a year you quietly build your footing. A year where you stop asking how things look from the outside and start asking how to make it through the day.

And somehow, you do. You make it.

This was the year I learned that to move forward, you have to fully release the past - not revisit it, not negotiate with it, not re‑litigate it, but loosen your grip and let it go. I learned that the bigger the experiences get - the louder, shinier, more impressive they appear from the outside - the more you crave the simplest things: peace, family, steadiness, and those who stay.

It was the year I learned that when you are truly on your own, partnership stops being an idea, and your best friend becomes everything. It was a year I returned to my creativity and photography to balance out my advocacy. And it was the year I began prioritizing joy - not because it came easily, but because choosing it became an act of self‑leadership.

This was also the year I stopped pretending.

I stopped smoothing the edges and performing strength for other people’s comfort. I stopped saying “I’m fine” when I wasn’t. I lived from my heart. I verbalized my needs - clearly, unapologetically. And I didn’t care who that made uncomfortable.

Some people only know how to love you when you’re easy. When you’re quiet. When you carry things without asking for help.

Those who stayed - I love you. Those who didn’t - be well.

Growth is not gentle. Growth is demanding. Growth is a storm. It takes chutzpah and grit, and it doesn’t always feel like progress while you’re inside it. More often than not, it feels like loss and grief before it feels like becoming.

But somewhere in the dismantling, something unexpected happened.

I found myself - not the curated version, but the one underneath. I found G‑d, not in the dramatic, but in the quiet rebuilding. And I found a strength that wasn’t loud or impressive, but earned - beam by beam, from the studs up.

If I can offer one thing to anyone still walking through it as we enter a new year, it’s this:

Invest in taking action.

Not when you feel ready. Not when you can see the full plan.

Because action isn’t the reward for faith. Action is the faith.

Miracles follow movement.

I experienced this daily - through quiet blessings, unexpected doors opening, and unmistakable G‑d winks that met me exactly where I stood while I rebuilt myself from the inside out.

There’s an ancient story that captures this better than anything else.

At the edge of the Red Sea, the people panic. Moses prays. Nothing happens. And then G‑d responds - not with reassurance or spectacle, but with a command:

“Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the people to go forward.”

Forward into what? Into water. Into danger. Into the unknown.

And then there is Nachshon ben Aminadav.

Before the sea splits, before there is proof or safety, Nachshon steps in. The water rises to his ankles, then his knees, then his chest, then his neck - until it reaches his nose.

Only then does the sea part.

That is what this year taught me.

Faith is not passive. Healing is not theoretical. Redemption does not arrive while we stand frozen at the edge.

You move first - even trembling, even unsure - and then, sometimes only then, the path appears.

As we close 2025 and step into 2026, this is my blessing for you - for us:

May you trust the step you are being asked to take, even when the water hasn’t moved yet. May you be met with strength you didn’t know you had, and signs that remind you that you are not walking alone. And may the year ahead part not because you waited for certainty - but because you were brave enough to move forward anyway.

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…..Because movement is how paths appear.