Message from a Paris victims shiva .... This was sent to me by a friend ...... We are all one family - A shiva call I will not soon forget Dear Family, I hope all is well. Friday is always a busy day for me, as the workday is short and the time-difference hard, but I wanted to share with you an experience I had this morning. This past week’s terrible attacks in France and the murder of four Jews in a kosher grocery store in Paris was in the news and on the minds of Jews throughout the world. In the end, the four families came to bury their loved ones in Israel, bringing them home. This morning, I went, together with my brother Moshe, to pay a shiva call to two of the French families who were sitting shiva in Jerusalem, one in the Ramada Jerusalem, and the other in an apartment near Machane Yehuda. (In a small world coincidence, on the way from Efrat, we saw a young woman whose car was stopped on the side of Highway 60. We pulled over to help remove what was blocking her wheel, and learned that she was herself from France and had moved to Elazar a short while ago.) Although we don’t know the families of the murdered men, I felt drawn to express our shared sorrow and to make sure that they knew that everyone felt their pain, even many miles from their homes in France. Although I went to try to comfort them, I left moved by how close we as Jews, despite totally different backgrounds - me from the US, they from France, neither speaking the other’s native language - connected. At the first shiva for Philippe Braham at the Ramada, Moshe and I spoke with his three brothers and one of his sons. (Others of the family had been in their room resting at the time.) We spoke a little about the attack, learned that Phillipe was just 45 years old (which is not so far from my age) and we tried to say some small words of comfort. As we were standing preparing to leave, however, I noticed one of the mourners, perhaps in his early 50s, standing and looking behind me. As I turned to watch him, I saw him gazing at a young tzahal soldier in full uniform, Kippah on his head, M-16 across his chest, Tefillin in his hand, and who was clearly French and had come to pay his respects. The mourning brother walked over to the young soldier, who he clearly did not know, and with eyes tearing slightly, thanked him for coming, looked at him once more, and walked back to where had been standing. It was clear to me that in all of the tragedy, the sight of a young French eighteen year old who made Aliyah and was serving in the IDF brought him great comfort and hope, and made clear that while his house may be in France, his home was here. We then went to the Shiva of Yoav Hattab, where his father, a rabbi in Tunis, was sitting in a small apartment. On the way to the apartment, Moshe and I met a young American college kid and an older retired American tourist, neither religious nor able to speak Hebrew, but both trying to find the apartment to pay their respects. As we made our way in, there were a number of people there, but it was very quiet. I unwittingly sat down right next to Yoav Hattab’s father, and we began to talk. He told me that his son, who was just 21 years old, was a pure soul, who brought happiness to his life, who loved Israel and wanted to make Aliyah, and had been in Israel just a few weeks ago on a Taglit trip. He noted that his son was killed buying wine for Shabbat at the kosher grocery, and that it should be a merit for him. I fumbled for words, but told him that we all shared his pain, and that Yoav now had a family of millions. The father said that his son’s death was terribly painful, but that he felt that it was lightened knowing that it was being carried as well by so many Jews around the world and in Israel. He shared a dvar Torah, and as I explained it in English to the retired American tourist who had not understood anything that was said as the only common language was Hebrew, the grieving father asked him to have a cookie and say a bracha l’zecher nishmat his son. I explained the Sephardic tradition to the American gentleman, and led him in the mezonot bracha, which he repeated haltingly but with great care, and all in the room answered Amen together. It occurred to me in that moment that in this one room, we had religious and non-religious, Americans, French, Tunisians, Israelis, answering a non-religious Jew’s bracha, in the memory of a murdered religious Jew in France, and if that anything warranted awakening Hashem’s mercy and comfort, this microcosm certainly did. We went to give comfort to these mourning families, and in the process found comfort for ourselves and our people. May Hashem comfort the families amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, may we know only smachot in the future, and may we merit the ingathering of all of our families to Eretz Yisroel, b’mheirah byameinu. Shabbat Shalom. Best, PS - If you want to see an inspiring interview of the son of the third victim, Francois Michel Saada, go to youtube/watch?v=61f4ERBwCnI
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 16:31:41 +0000
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