Explosive News

In memory of my father, who would have turned 73 today.
The purpose of this blog is to promote soul-stirring conversation at the Shabbat table. Please print and share. 

Photo credit: ABC News

Who said it:

"A tragedy and devastation that has stolen our innocence, forced our children to grow up way too soon to experience a pain that nobody should ever know, and to confront questions that simply have no answers."

Can you guess???

We all heard about two terrifying explosions this week (I'm counting Boston as one).

But there was a third that made fewer headlines.

The quote above was a response to the one you didn't hear about.

It happened this past Sunday, but the story begins twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago, yours, truly wandered into Jerusalem looking for a place to learn about Judaism.

Some Jews I'd met in Paris told me that there were these schools called yeshivas where beginners like me could learn.

In English.

For free.

(Although it isn't always easy to decide to go.)

(Nor to find them when you do decide to go.)

(Nor to learn once you get there.)

OK, I wasn't a total beginner, but I knew all of about 10 words in Hebrew, didn't know what the Western Wall was west of, and couldn't have told you why Jacob was the good guy and Esav was the bad guy (although I somehow knew that much).

There's a long story here, but let's cut to the chase.


One of the several yeshivas I tried out put me up in an apartment with a couple other guys in it.

One of these guys was a rabbinical student named Mike.

Mike was about two days from his wedding.

He was one of the happiest guys I'd ever met.

He invited me to the wedding and it had a profound impact on me. That night I wrote in my journal, "I don't know if I'll ever become religious, but I know that I want to get married like that!"

Later I often visited Mike and Denise in their Jerusalem apartment. I helped with the baby, etc. And I discovered that Mike (and Denise) was happy all the time, it wasn't just because of his wedding.

That happy energy made Mike and Denise a magnet for all kinds of people, Jewish and Gentile. They set up rabbi-shop in Philly for a few years, then in Milwaukee, and most recently in Boca Raton.

Over the past twenty years, they have hosted thousands at their Shabbat table. The impact of their kindness is immeasuraable.

Twelve years ago, while they were still in Philly and the world was still innocent, they had a baby girl, their second daughter and fourth child.

MIke and Denise named her Shoshana Rachel, which means "the Rose of Rachel".

Shoshie grew up in a family whose middle name was Lovingkindness.

She grew up with a natural compassion, second nature to her.  She was the rare kid who never complained where she had to sit in the carpool, or next to whom, she was happy and she connected with all kinds of people.

Shoshie was also a natural athlete, and on Sunday afternoon, she went out sliding (reportedly a form of skateboarding).

She was crossing a street at the crosswalk. She waited for the light. She was not wearing headphones or otherwise distracted. She passed in front of a car waiting at the light and smiled her warm smile at the driver, perhaps she recognized him, a member of her Jewish community.

This happy smile was her final communication.

To his horror, the driver watched the light change before Shoshie reached the other side. He realized that she was in mortal danger but there was nothing he could do. A moment later,  a car (not speeding) hit her, she was in the air and she was gone. This eyewitness, a doctor, leaped out of his own car and rushed to the scene but her soul had already departed.

An hour later when Denise went out looking for her daughter, the ambulance had already come and gone and the police were doing their investigation.

The 1,000 people at Shoshie's funeral Tuesday, arriving from all corners of the country, were a testament to what Mike and Denise mean to us.

By "us" I mean you and me.

I paid a shiva call yesterday, and would like to leave you with two things that Denise told me. Maybe you'll share them with your table.

First, I asked her, "If you had known 12 years ago that you would have only been able to have Shoshie around for 12 years, would you have wanted to have her, or is the pain of losing her too great?"

Denise said, "Are you kidding? I hate that she's gone, it hurts, but I'm grateful that she was in my life. She was a light. I'm a religious person, I was in Jerusalem for eight years. I believe that everything happens for a reason, even if I don't know the reason."

Shoshie had just recently prepared for her parents a gift of a collage of photos of herself, and a birthday gift for her sister two months in advance. These were bizarre things for her to do and Denise said that Shoshie must have known subconsciously that her time here was running out.

"What is an example of how she was a light?"

"When we moved here, Shoshie was a new kid in school. But she wasted no time making an impact. There was some kind of feud going on between two girls and each one had gotten into her own clique, and Shoshie made them make up. She told them, 'I'm not going to be friends with either of you unless you make up.' And they listened to her. That's the kind of girl she was."

May her memory be for a blessing.


Shabbat Shalom

PS - The best way to honor the departed is to try to emulate their goodness and to teach it to our children. JSL's Simi Yellen is offering her incomparable parenting course via telephone, beginning next week. Click here for details. Whether for yourself or a parent you know, we only get one chance to raise a Shoshie, this is the time to put in the time and effort.

Wedding or Funeral?

In memory of Gerda Haas, who was laid to rest this week at the age of 98. See below.
The purpose of this email is to provide something meaningful for Friday night dinner conversation. Please print and share.


Wedding or Funeral?

Here's the question of the week for your Shabbat table:

If all factors were equal, would you choose to attend a wedding or a funeral?

For instance, say you had a friend getting married and another friend sitting shiva. Keep the factors equal - they both equally would want you to attend, they both equally would understand if you did not attend, etc. etc.

In other words, the question is what you would prefer to do for you.

King Solomon asked this question some 2,900 years ago.

His answer?

"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting."

Second question for your table: What was he thinking?

(For a clue, see the source of the quotation, Ecclesiastes 7:2 - I only quoted the first half of the sentence.)


Mrs. Gerda Haas, to whom this week's message is dedicated, made it out of Germany with her husband and infant son just in time to save their lives. Most of their extended family perished, but they survived, via Marseilles, Shanghai and San Francisco.

In her memory, here are two anecdotes to show you the strength of her character.

In her 80s she had the opportunity to visit Jerusalem and of course spent some time at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial. I saw her that evening and she only had one thing on her mind.

On a bus with other tourists, she overheard a German man behind her say, "Ach. I don't know why they have such a thing. We lost a lot of people in the war too."

She turned around and told him off in impeccable German that his people murdered her entire family because they were Jews and how dare he speak that way. She wasn't shocked that someone should think such a thing, but said it took incredible chuzpa for him to say it aloud.

Another time she had surgery that required a local anesthetic to her leg but she chose to have a general anesthetic as well, but not a deep one.

Evidently the buzzing of the surgeon's saw woke her up and seeing what was going on she exclaimed in her German accent, "Doctor? You call yourself a doctor? You are no doctor! You're a carpenter!"





I cannot do this great life justice - she touched many, many people her her 98 years.

She is survived by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and many friends of all ages whom she inspired. May her memory be for a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom


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Memory

We lost a friend and neighbor this week, Steve Goldstein.

After two brain surgeries and chemo, the cancer won.

He was a guy who collected broken lawnmowers. By the end of this eulogy, I hope you'll appreciate why.

Steve was one of those rare guys who was both sensible and 100 percent genuine. He never did things to be "politically correct". That meant that if he said something, you knew he meant it.

No one else in our neighborhood would mow the lawn shirtless. But if it's hot out, that's the most sensible thing to do, right?

Steve also helped everyone, and I mean everyone, with any kind of problem with their home.

Your pilot light went out and you can't figure out how to turn it on? Ask Steve.
You have a loose shingle on the roof? Steve would notice it before you and be up on his ladder fixing it before you could blink.
You need help cutting a board for a DIY project? Borrow a tool? And so on.

Most men like to have their "cave" as John Gray calls it, a place to retreat and do whatever men like to do, smoke cigars or whatever.

Steve built the greatest man-cave in his back yard, a 50x30x20 (that's feet) shed.

That's where he did his projects, that's where he stored his "stuff".

A woman's nightmare. But every man reading this will nod his head in understanding.

As I said, he collected broken lawnmowers. Maybe that would be a good question for your table - "Why do you think the guy collected broken lawnmowers?"

The answer, of course, is because he enjoyed fixing them and then giving them away to his neighbors.

That's the kind of guy he was.

But he was also a reverential guy. In his youth, he had the good fortune of spending a few years in a New York yeshiva. Somehow he ended up there even though he was born and raised in Pensacola. And that experience fostered in him an indelible respect for Torah and Torah scholars. None of his other life experiences could erase that. Not his service in Vietnam, not his years on the road as a salesman, to places that one might think are the diametric opposite of a yeshiva experience.

Almost to the end he attended Baltimore's most famous weekly class, the "Thursday night class". I saw him walking home Thursday night. Here's how the interaction would go:

"How was the class?"
"Good. It was a good class. I didn't understand half of it, but the half I understood was good."

Often after helping a neighbor such as us, we'd feel so much gratitude that we would try to pay him something. He wouldn't hear of it. "I'll tell you what, have us over for a Shabbos meal."

And so we did. Many times. After his brain surgeries, with giant stitches on his skull, the kids thought he looked a little scary, like Frankenstein's monster. But they all loved him, they could tell there was something special about him, about his intelligent frankness.

The decline was swift. As recently as Thanksgiving he had his wits. But by Channuka he was having trouble finding familiar things.


Our street will never be the same. Condolences to Abby, his wife of 25 years, and the rest of the family.


To end on an "up" note - one of the eulogists at the funeral mentioned that he hadn't known Steve as well as he would have liked, and now it's too late.

Question for your table - Is there anyone in your life whom you'd like to know better before it's too late? Is there anyone you'd like to do an act of kindness (chesed) for, before it's too late? Here's a zinger - How do you want people to remember you at their Friday night dinner tables?


Shabbat Shalom


PS - to see today's "Amazing Jewish Fact" - on Reincarnation - click here.