Knowing Rivka Willick
    by Liora Tziporah Stein
    (originally published Spring 2007)

Rivka Willick is one of the strongest, most insightful women I’ve ever known. For fifteen years I’ve  called her friend. In times of strife I’ve shared the details of my circumstance. Without fail she’s given me details about the way I’ve told her my story that gave her the truth of my circumstance I never began to understand about myself. Usually it’s a truth that no other person could have understood or relayed to me in as direct or as illuminating a manner.

When I wrote my first book I prepared my marketing campaign under the premise that the story I told was about the importance of being authentic. That was the lesson I thought I’d learned. Perhaps when the story is read there is truth in my statement. But when I told Rivka the truth of the entire tale behind the novella, she said “This story is about the importance of saying what needs to be said.” When I
thought about it, it was stunningly true. My opportunities had been lost in what I failed to say over and
over again. While I’d learned to be authentic, and how I could share all the parts of me, speaking my
truth right away would have changed my entire life.

Rivka believes strongly in the power, not just of the story itself, but specifically in the telling of the
story. Most of us naively assume that a story is just a story. Stories can be related in writing, and the way
it is written may be poetic, literary or crude but the words we use to weave a tale are different when we
speak them. They are more direct, they have less adornment, and how we say them and the expressions
upon our face, and the movements of our bodies speak as loudly as any of the words we choose.

Rivka is blessed with the ability to share her power, her wisdom, and her joy in the way she tells her
profound tales. Bringing her into your world can change your perspective on just about everything.
I’m overwhelmed by the power of her insight and the way that her inimitable vision sears to the center
of the issue, the purpose, the power…. the very core of you. We are preparing her first recording of
stories that she has developed. Saying that she wrote these stories isn’t an accurate conveyance of what
it is she actually does to a story. It is in the power of her voice, though it is quite gentle. It is in the
power of her intonation, her inference and innuendo. Her symbolic choices, which she refuses to directly
explain, permeate, foretell, explain the significance of a life’s path in such a subtle way you aren’t quite
prepared for the way they overtake you.

Today Rivka gave me an amazing gift. She told me MY story, the story of my path in a story she entitles
“Dancing On The Edge”. I am uncomfortable with this title because I don’t like the inference that the
“me” I like to present is somehow distracted from my greater purpose. If you know me personally, and
the particular dragon I’ve been at war with for all these many years, the story probably has a haunting
quality about it, particularly in light of recent events. There are aspects I might change or expand upon,
or just prefer to blot out all together. But you know, there’s an incredible empowerment in hearing your
tale told by someone who has become A Teller.