"A whole life was never meant to be a painless one." My Mother died in a fire in '82 when I was out West. Sometime in 2015 or so some one asked me if I could have one wish for anything and most of the group wanted money, cars. or a big house. When I was asked I said "Five minutes with my Mom so I could tell her I loved her and be able to say goodbye." At 74 I realize after a long life that life is to be endured.
I cannot recommend her book enough. Grief does not go away one week, one month nor one year after a loved ones's passing, but neither does the love. She is far more than the story of her son, despite her conveying in her book that she and her husband were normal and boring prior to Oct 7. I've so enjoyed her insights into various holidays when she joins Dan Senor on his "Call Me Back" podcast. She doesn't know just how bright her light shines!
I have her book but I cannot bring myself to open it. It sits on my coffee table and every day I look at it and it asks me when I’m going to. I just don’t think I am able to yet.
I wish that the people I knew when I lost my husband could have read this. I can’t help but to think when you use the term “gospel,” though, that you may be criticizing American churches, and you would be right! There is a sickening positivity that has taken over so many churches, but I have to say that it’s not the true gospel—that Jesus suffered a fate worse than the tunnels and the concentration camps because He loves us so much, even more than this loving mother loved her precious son. This is what holds me together as this world spirals down into bleak hatefulness. Shalom to all here! God loves you so much, and I appreciate this Substack.
Edit:I have to add that this was so beautifully written. I cried all the way through as I read it. God is healing my heart, and He is using this among other things to do this work in me.
First, I am so deeply sorry for the loss of your husband. May his memory be a blessing. It means a great deal to me that the words I share here could provide a safe space for your tears and play a small part in your healing. Grief is an incredibly heavy burden, and I am glad you found some comfort in this space.
However, as a rabbi, I must gently but firmly address the comparison you made. I understand that you are expressing the profound depth of your faith and the love you see in your tradition. But comparing any individual's suffering to the systematic torture and murder of the Holocaust is deeply painful, and I believe this is the source of the hurt and strong reaction in ASP’s response.
In Jewish tradition, we are taught that to destroy a single life is to destroy an entire world. The death of one person is an absolute tragedy. But the Shoah was the murder of six million individual people. Each of those deaths was a profound tragedy on its own, and collectively, the staggering scale of six million lives lost is an incomprehensible historical horror. To say that one individual suffered a fate worse than that collective agony minimizes the sheer, crushing weight of what was endured.
In our tradition, we try not to rank or compete with suffering; instead, we are called simply to sit with the brokenhearted. I receive your blessing of *Shalom* with genuine gratitude, and I send it right back to you as you continue to navigate your grief and healing.
Dear Rabbi, thank you so much for your gracious reply! This is so rare these days. I hear you about the suffering of your people. I cannot imagine the horror of the concentration camps and the tunnels. I meant in no way to make light of the suffering, and believe me, I cried and prayed that the October 7 victims would be set free from their vile captors. Perhaps the world has forgotten them, but I have not. I still grieve for them and their loved ones.
But our biggest enemy is not the terrorists; it is sin and death. Jesus suffered our punishment of hell, separation from his Father and all that is good, so that we would not suffer the sinner’s fate. I know that the tunnels and the camps must have been like hell to those who suffered there, but actual hell is so much worse.
I hesitate to bring this up, but many Christians suffered and died in the camps for helping their Jewish friends and neighbors. Many Christians throughout the world are murdered for their faith. The devil desires to destroy all that God loves.
BTW, I just realized that you wrote the piece that touched me so deeply. I’m honored that you would have a conversation with me.
The truth is - scores of JEWS were nailed to crosses.
JEWS did not 'kill' him, that is reality omitted to continue slander against our prople, and why is this lie spread... to vilify our kin.
Hating us is a bloodsport we must never tolerate. We are so
done with lies overt and by omission.
My kin were slauat Babi Yar, our children drowned in the well by antisemetic monsters now melding themselves in a sewer. of lies and ignorance. You'd think after centuries this would have been corrected but no....
they just have a passion to hate us, how clear as a bell ringing through the night.
I agree with you completely that the Jews did not crucify Jesus! I have never blamed you for this. Roman hands, Gentile hands, pounded the nails through His hands and feet. But we all put Him there because the spotless Lamb took our sins onto Himself so that humankind could enter into fellowship with God—to know Him and love Him and know His love for us. I realize that this offends you, but sometimes the truth offends.
So much love and heartfelt reasons for what this life truly means. Reading your words enhances my love for Judaism, motherhood, and our peoplehood. I wish everyone could experience true love for life, family, Israel and Judaism. 💯✡️💖💙🤍
Rachel and Jon have inspired me from the very first day I laid eyes on them and heard their voices. It’s hard to describe the dignity with which they carried their tireless fight to save Hersh and all the heartbreak that has followed. They are truly inspirational. My heart breaks every time I hear their words
I read things occasionally that bring me to tears. But it's rare to read a piece that tears me wide open. Your essay was unbearably beautiful, deep and true. Holy words - thank you.
For those who believe in God, there is tremendous comfort in the idea that there is a design, a purpose, and a meaning behind even the greatest tragedies. Faith can provide an anchor when life becomes almost impossible to understand.
For those of us who struggle with faith or don't possess it, the challenge is different. We still have to make sense of loss, grief, and suffering, but without the certainty that there is a larger plan behind it all. That doesn't necessarily lead us to faith, nor should we pretend to believe something we do not. We have to live honestly with ourselves.
What I admire about this piece is that regardless of where one stands on faith, it speaks to something universal: the idea that love and grief are inseparable, and that a life filled with love is worth the pain that eventually comes with it.
Thanks for this perspective. But i must ask this : are our enemies ( including their supporters) who did what they did holy people? Or is it more complicated than that? I cannot help but ask this question in light of what we have witnessed PRIMARILY AFTER OCTOBER 7? I am.fully aware that what i ask is beyond the question of optimism in the face and presence of evil .So many more emotions abd feelings but I will leave it there as much of the world as seems to care little about any of this ( and cannot admit or acknowledge obvious evil in their midst)
I wanted to thank you for this essay. It affected me more deeply than I can easily put into words.
Like many Jews, I have been carrying October 7th with me every day since it happened. But I have also been carrying a very personal season of loss, illness, uncertainty, and grief since last October as well. Reading your words felt less like reading an article and more like sitting with someone who understood that life can become profoundly broken without becoming devoid of meaning.
The image of Moses descending the mountain unaware of the light on his face moved me deeply. So did the shattered tablets resting beside the whole ones in the Ark. I have spent much of this year feeling more like shattered tablets than whole ones, and your essay reminded me that Judaism has never demanded that we discard the broken pieces in order to call something holy.
The distinction between toxic positivity and tragic optimism finally made sense to me through Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s story. Not because it offered comfort in the conventional sense, but because it gave dignity to suffering without surrendering to despair. That is a much rarer gift.
The line that will stay with me is: “The love is handed to us first, long before the price is ever named.”
I have been turning that over in my mind ever since I read it.
Thank you for writing something that neither looked away from grief nor allowed grief to have the final word. In a time when many of us are carrying both personal and collective heartbreak, your words felt like a companion.
Your letter has stayed with me since I read it, and I want you to know that before anything else.
You did not just read the essay. You read it from inside the very thing it was trying to describe, and that is a harder place to stand. I am sorry for the season you have been carrying, the loss and the illness and the uncertainty, on top of the grief we are all carrying together since that October. That is a great deal for one person to hold.
What you wrote about feeling more like the shattered tablets than the whole ones undid me a little. The sages noticed that the Ark held both, the broken and the whole, side by side, and they did not rank them. The broken set was not a failure to be hidden. It traveled with Israel as something holy in its own right. I think you already understand this more deeply than the essay does, because you are living it rather than writing it.
That the line about love handed to us first is the one staying with you tells me it found the person it was meant for. Please be gentle with yourself in this season. The brokenness is not the opposite of the holiness. It is part of what is being carried.
Thank you for trusting me with this. You are not carrying it as alone as it feels.
"A whole life was never meant to be a painless one." My Mother died in a fire in '82 when I was out West. Sometime in 2015 or so some one asked me if I could have one wish for anything and most of the group wanted money, cars. or a big house. When I was asked I said "Five minutes with my Mom so I could tell her I loved her and be able to say goodbye." At 74 I realize after a long life that life is to be endured.
I wish the same. My mother was 49. X
Sometimes when I see people in their 30's WITH their Moms I tell them "cherish your Mother while you have her." My Mom was 50 at her death.
Thank you for sharing! I will pass it on to touch someone else as it has touched me. 🕊️
So many FoJ articles sound identical and AI-edited. This...this one is beautiful. Thank you.
I cannot recommend her book enough. Grief does not go away one week, one month nor one year after a loved ones's passing, but neither does the love. She is far more than the story of her son, despite her conveying in her book that she and her husband were normal and boring prior to Oct 7. I've so enjoyed her insights into various holidays when she joins Dan Senor on his "Call Me Back" podcast. She doesn't know just how bright her light shines!
My advice is to have a box of tissues and read one bit at a time.
I have her book but I cannot bring myself to open it. It sits on my coffee table and every day I look at it and it asks me when I’m going to. I just don’t think I am able to yet.
Rabbi Abraham, thank your for sharing such a mindful and heartfelt article.
I’d previously heard the expression, ‘with great love, comes deep pain’. Indeed, no one said life would be easy.
‘Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass .. it is about learning how to dance in the rain’ … Shavua Tov
I wish that the people I knew when I lost my husband could have read this. I can’t help but to think when you use the term “gospel,” though, that you may be criticizing American churches, and you would be right! There is a sickening positivity that has taken over so many churches, but I have to say that it’s not the true gospel—that Jesus suffered a fate worse than the tunnels and the concentration camps because He loves us so much, even more than this loving mother loved her precious son. This is what holds me together as this world spirals down into bleak hatefulness. Shalom to all here! God loves you so much, and I appreciate this Substack.
Edit:I have to add that this was so beautifully written. I cried all the way through as I read it. God is healing my heart, and He is using this among other things to do this work in me.
You may believe in a suffering Jesus, but to say that he suffered more than those who suffered the unspeakable horrors of the holocaust is obscene
Dee,
First, I am so deeply sorry for the loss of your husband. May his memory be a blessing. It means a great deal to me that the words I share here could provide a safe space for your tears and play a small part in your healing. Grief is an incredibly heavy burden, and I am glad you found some comfort in this space.
However, as a rabbi, I must gently but firmly address the comparison you made. I understand that you are expressing the profound depth of your faith and the love you see in your tradition. But comparing any individual's suffering to the systematic torture and murder of the Holocaust is deeply painful, and I believe this is the source of the hurt and strong reaction in ASP’s response.
In Jewish tradition, we are taught that to destroy a single life is to destroy an entire world. The death of one person is an absolute tragedy. But the Shoah was the murder of six million individual people. Each of those deaths was a profound tragedy on its own, and collectively, the staggering scale of six million lives lost is an incomprehensible historical horror. To say that one individual suffered a fate worse than that collective agony minimizes the sheer, crushing weight of what was endured.
In our tradition, we try not to rank or compete with suffering; instead, we are called simply to sit with the brokenhearted. I receive your blessing of *Shalom* with genuine gratitude, and I send it right back to you as you continue to navigate your grief and healing.
Dear Rabbi, thank you so much for your gracious reply! This is so rare these days. I hear you about the suffering of your people. I cannot imagine the horror of the concentration camps and the tunnels. I meant in no way to make light of the suffering, and believe me, I cried and prayed that the October 7 victims would be set free from their vile captors. Perhaps the world has forgotten them, but I have not. I still grieve for them and their loved ones.
But our biggest enemy is not the terrorists; it is sin and death. Jesus suffered our punishment of hell, separation from his Father and all that is good, so that we would not suffer the sinner’s fate. I know that the tunnels and the camps must have been like hell to those who suffered there, but actual hell is so much worse.
I hesitate to bring this up, but many Christians suffered and died in the camps for helping their Jewish friends and neighbors. Many Christians throughout the world are murdered for their faith. The devil desires to destroy all that God loves.
BTW, I just realized that you wrote the piece that touched me so deeply. I’m honored that you would have a conversation with me.
The truth is - scores of JEWS were nailed to crosses.
JEWS did not 'kill' him, that is reality omitted to continue slander against our prople, and why is this lie spread... to vilify our kin.
Hating us is a bloodsport we must never tolerate. We are so
done with lies overt and by omission.
My kin were slauat Babi Yar, our children drowned in the well by antisemetic monsters now melding themselves in a sewer. of lies and ignorance. You'd think after centuries this would have been corrected but no....
they just have a passion to hate us, how clear as a bell ringing through the night.
Tribe Judah
I agree with you completely that the Jews did not crucify Jesus! I have never blamed you for this. Roman hands, Gentile hands, pounded the nails through His hands and feet. But we all put Him there because the spotless Lamb took our sins onto Himself so that humankind could enter into fellowship with God—to know Him and love Him and know His love for us. I realize that this offends you, but sometimes the truth offends.
Hmm.
My kind of Rabbi. Yasher koach
So much love and heartfelt reasons for what this life truly means. Reading your words enhances my love for Judaism, motherhood, and our peoplehood. I wish everyone could experience true love for life, family, Israel and Judaism. 💯✡️💖💙🤍
What a beautiful, soulful article. I can only write thank you for sharing and for describing loss and grief in an exquisite manner.
I feel every word of this! Every single word and wish I had written it because I feel it deeply.
Rachel and Jon have inspired me from the very first day I laid eyes on them and heard their voices. It’s hard to describe the dignity with which they carried their tireless fight to save Hersh and all the heartbreak that has followed. They are truly inspirational. My heart breaks every time I hear their words
I read things occasionally that bring me to tears. But it's rare to read a piece that tears me wide open. Your essay was unbearably beautiful, deep and true. Holy words - thank you.
Rabbi Abraham, this is a beautiful article.
For those who believe in God, there is tremendous comfort in the idea that there is a design, a purpose, and a meaning behind even the greatest tragedies. Faith can provide an anchor when life becomes almost impossible to understand.
For those of us who struggle with faith or don't possess it, the challenge is different. We still have to make sense of loss, grief, and suffering, but without the certainty that there is a larger plan behind it all. That doesn't necessarily lead us to faith, nor should we pretend to believe something we do not. We have to live honestly with ourselves.
What I admire about this piece is that regardless of where one stands on faith, it speaks to something universal: the idea that love and grief are inseparable, and that a life filled with love is worth the pain that eventually comes with it.
A truly moving article.
Thanks for this perspective. But i must ask this : are our enemies ( including their supporters) who did what they did holy people? Or is it more complicated than that? I cannot help but ask this question in light of what we have witnessed PRIMARILY AFTER OCTOBER 7? I am.fully aware that what i ask is beyond the question of optimism in the face and presence of evil .So many more emotions abd feelings but I will leave it there as much of the world as seems to care little about any of this ( and cannot admit or acknowledge obvious evil in their midst)
Rabbi,
I wanted to thank you for this essay. It affected me more deeply than I can easily put into words.
Like many Jews, I have been carrying October 7th with me every day since it happened. But I have also been carrying a very personal season of loss, illness, uncertainty, and grief since last October as well. Reading your words felt less like reading an article and more like sitting with someone who understood that life can become profoundly broken without becoming devoid of meaning.
The image of Moses descending the mountain unaware of the light on his face moved me deeply. So did the shattered tablets resting beside the whole ones in the Ark. I have spent much of this year feeling more like shattered tablets than whole ones, and your essay reminded me that Judaism has never demanded that we discard the broken pieces in order to call something holy.
The distinction between toxic positivity and tragic optimism finally made sense to me through Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s story. Not because it offered comfort in the conventional sense, but because it gave dignity to suffering without surrendering to despair. That is a much rarer gift.
The line that will stay with me is: “The love is handed to us first, long before the price is ever named.”
I have been turning that over in my mind ever since I read it.
Thank you for writing something that neither looked away from grief nor allowed grief to have the final word. In a time when many of us are carrying both personal and collective heartbreak, your words felt like a companion.
With gratitude,
Reva
Reva,
Your letter has stayed with me since I read it, and I want you to know that before anything else.
You did not just read the essay. You read it from inside the very thing it was trying to describe, and that is a harder place to stand. I am sorry for the season you have been carrying, the loss and the illness and the uncertainty, on top of the grief we are all carrying together since that October. That is a great deal for one person to hold.
What you wrote about feeling more like the shattered tablets than the whole ones undid me a little. The sages noticed that the Ark held both, the broken and the whole, side by side, and they did not rank them. The broken set was not a failure to be hidden. It traveled with Israel as something holy in its own right. I think you already understand this more deeply than the essay does, because you are living it rather than writing it.
That the line about love handed to us first is the one staying with you tells me it found the person it was meant for. Please be gentle with yourself in this season. The brokenness is not the opposite of the holiness. It is part of what is being carried.
Thank you for trusting me with this. You are not carrying it as alone as it feels.
With blessing,
Steven
I always wondered what happened to the broken tablets. Makes sense they were put in the Ark, too! Thanks. Great piece about suffering.