Dear Friends,
Can we be thankful when there is pain and challenges around us?
This week we have seen no shortage of dramatic events and also painful events, the Jewish New Year is coming, and our emotions are being stretched in every direction, and indeed this week's portion addresses the concept of thanksgiving, even when not everything around us is going well.
But to address this question, I would like to simply share a letter from Rachel Goldberg, Hersh's Mum, which we were given permission to share.
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To my beautiful HaKel family,
How do I begin to thank you for every single thing? For 342 days you have been with us. In every way, every day. So, the words 'thank you' are so hollow. But here goes an attempt to express to you a molecule of gratitude for the universe of support, effort and love you showered us with by the bucketful, every single day, in different ways, for hundreds of days and millions of seconds.
From the late morning of October 7th, you showed up. Since then, those of you I knew and didn't know have prayed for Hersh and us, cooked, advocated, took to the streets, cried for us and tried for us. Prayed and prayed and prayed. I felt it. It washed over me. I felt it.
And then came that shiva that was so surreal and unfamiliar. But you all showed up in different ways. You all looked like angels in bright yellow vests. You were magnificently bossy when needed with the hoards. And gentle, always so gentle with us.
For these long, torturous, arduous and tormented days, everyone was so invested.....which really helps now, actually. Many of you already knew Hersh very well, and those who did not grew to know and love Hersh too. He became הירש שלנו. It helped and it helps.
So, I think this is not like the "normal" (is there such a thing...is using that word grotesque and inappropriate? -forgive me) loss of a child, where people feel desperate to share and explain who their child was, so people can grieve with them and not forget about their beloved. I feel in so many ways, Hersh became all of ours. There is great comfort in that.
And I feel tremendous relief that he is not in that hell hole (literally) anymore. I am so relieved we gave his battered and abused body a proper majestic and Halachic burial. I am so relieved that his beautiful Neshama is finally free. I will now have to learn to be in this world without him. But having him all the years I did is worth the pain I will have.
Worth every tear and sigh and lump in my throat and every pang of pain until it's my time to be buried next to him when I am 120 and have many grandchildren and great grandchildren (hopefully, one who is named Hersh). Worth it. Worth it...truly.
Thank you, you unbelievably generous, kind, tender, caring, thoughtful, benevolent, brilliant and loving people. Thank you endlessly and always for holding us however you have during this dark chapter. Each gesture mattered and was felt...sometimes loudly, and sometimes, with just a fleeting whisper unseen but sensed.
Keep davening that we all survive and thrive again somehow, someway...someday; BECAUSE WE WILL.
And may Hersh's light always inspire us. May his memory be a blessing and a revolution... but not a crazy revolution... just a revolution to think and do differently.
To think and do....better.
Love, Rachel
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In Rachel's incredible way, she teaches us how to be thankful and have a different kind of perspective, even when pain is at your doorstep or eating away at your heart.
Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos to everyone!
Yisroel
P.S A message from Rachel to our Community
Please tell Rabbi Freeman thank you for all he and his wonderful Sudbury community did to help save Hersh. I hope they will keep davening for my family to be blessed with the strength and resilience needed to survive and thrive again. And everyone obviously should continue davening for the immediate safe release of the remaining 101 hostages. And may our brave soldiers come home swiftly and in peace. Thank you.