August 13, 2025 • 57 mins
For many years, Rabbi Ginzberg supported families grieving the loss of a child. Then it happened to him. His daughter, Sarala, became ill and was nifteres at the age of seventeen.
He reflects on the profound difference between being a supportive spectator and becoming an active participant in grief. And yet, even in the depths of his pain, he discovered what can help ease it. Yes, he misses her deeply. Yes, he wishes she had married and built a family like her friends. But he has found ways to stay connected to her—by doing what he can for her neshamah. In some ways, he says, he feels more connected to Sarala than to his living children whom he can see and speak to.
In this episode, Rabbi Ginzberg shares how he finds nechamah through the words of gedolim and talmidei chachamim, and how we can lean into the ways our leaders have dealt with painful loss. After all, we are human and will feel the pain—but we also know that support exists in a Torahdik way.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Relief from Grief podcast, hosted by
Mrs Miriam Rebiet and brought toyou by Mayrim.
Mayrim is an organizationdedicated to supporting families
who have experienced the lossof a child.
It was founded by IloyNishmat's, nechama Liba and
Miriam Holman.
Despite her illness, miriamdevoted herself to addressing
(00:22):
the needs of parents andsiblings grappling with the
immense pain of losing a child.
She felt this loss deeply,having experienced it firsthand
when her older sister, nechamaLiba, passed away.
Mehrim continues to uplift andexpand on the work Miriam began,
a mission carried forward byher parents with great
dedication.
(00:43):
If you have any questions orcomments for the speaker, or if
you'd like to suggest a guestfor the podcast, please email us
at relieffromgrief at mayrimorg.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hi everybody.
Thank you so much for joiningme here today on the Relief from
Grief by Mayrim podcast.
Today there's Reb ChaimAriyezev GinsburgGinsburg, the
Rev of the Chagachayim TowerCenter of Cedarhurst.
Yes, thank you so so much forcoming on.
I really appreciate you comingon.
(01:18):
Okay, so you know it could be.
It was the first article that Iread of yours, or it could be.
It was the first one that Iread of yours, or it could be.
It was the first one that Inoticed your name.
I don't know, but it made suchan impression on me.
I think the title was it's notthe way it's supposed to be.
Do you know what I'm talkingabout?
And you wrote about how peoplecome into your study all the
time and say you know, I wasn'tsupposed to have this amount of
kids.
My shell bias wasn't supposedto be like this, whatever it was
(01:40):
.
And you wrote about like, about, like what, like what, what
does that mean?
I, it is supposed to be thisway, like, this is your life.
So it made such an impressionon me.
I read it so many years ago andI'm I still remember it.
So I guess if we could startlike you know for for sure, it's
not in anyone's you knowsupposed to be to lose a child.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So I guess if we could talk about, like, how your
Mechazik parents, when they gothrough such a loss and when
they come to you Well, I don'tknow if there's a magic formula,
but the question that you'reasking, besides the two hats,
besides being a rabbi, I'm surepeople come up up to me.
I have all kinds of situations,difficult and not so difficult.
(02:30):
Also, really, I don't have abereaved father.
My wife and I lost our17-year-old daughter, sarula
Alashon, and it's a perspectivefrom real life to understand how
to, and the truth is that it'sthe same.
(02:50):
What you tell people as youtell yourself is the same thing.
It's the same concepts, thesame thoughts that go through my
mind and I think it's a process, but I think it's probably the
most important thing to keep inmind is that you know we're not
(03:12):
in control because Brokaw runsthis world, because Brokaw
doesn't give anyone anythingthat they don't need.
We have no understanding of whyLife comes from all kinds of
challenges, big and small, andwe're not given to try to
(03:36):
understand why it happened to us, because it's frustrating.
There's no answers and youspend a life just wasting away
thinking about why and couldhave been different, should have
been different.
What if I did somethingdifferent?
Those thoughts are so numbingand so wasteful.
You don't grow from it.
(03:57):
You don't grow from it and youdon't heal from it.
There has to be anunderstanding that when things
happen, especially things ofthis type of nature, it's like I
Zwergu.
There's a reason why ithappened.
It's way beyond our humancomprehension and we have to
face the challenges.
And facing the challenges is anumber of different ways.
(04:17):
One of the ways that I know formyself and my wife for sure is
with an incredible story thefamed gay rabbi, mams.
Gay rabbi was the all I knowthey gave.
Mams was the gay rabbi inEurope before the war.
(04:39):
It was the biggest Hasidus inEurope.
He came and survivedmiraculously.
There's a book written abouthis survival, how he was able to
escape.
Some of his children didn'tmake it out, some did.
And he came back to Israel andhe rebuilt a literal few
(05:01):
remaining Hasidim from hundredsand hundreds of thousands of
Gerer Hasidim and we, hundredsof thousands of Ger HaChasidim,
and we built and we built upwith Ger.
Today it's the largest Hasidimin the world today.
So there's something incrediblethat he had said.
There was a young teenage boywho, one of the Ger HaChasidim,
(05:23):
one of the Kabbalim.
The Rebbe bumped into him inthe streets of Yerushalayim and
he recognized him and he calledhim by his Yiddish name.
The boy just didn't even answerhim.
And then he called him by hislast name and the boy just,
finally, he called him by thename of his father.
He said you're the son of.
(05:43):
And the boy turned aroundClearly was estranged from
anything.
He described Totally notreligious anymore, surely not
ger or chassid anymore.
No, yarmulke, no, nothing.
And he said I recognize you.
And the boy said I have nothingto do.
I don't want anything to dowith any, anything to do with
(06:06):
Hashem, with anybody connectedto Hashem, any religious people.
I want nothing to do with it.
After the war, excuse me.
So the person was very takenand this person came from an
established family, a prominentG-d.
I've seen them for generations.
So he went to tell the Rebbeand the Rebbe said please go
find him and tell him I want tospeak to him.
(06:27):
So he went and searched andfound Rebbe Urim and convinced
him somehow to come to the Rebbe.
When the Rebbe came to the Rebbe, the Rebbe said you know, I
know your father and yourgrandfather and your
great-grandfather.
And he said Rebbe, I losteverybody.
I was the only one left in myfamily.
We had 160 relatives who livedall in the same town.
(06:50):
I'm the only one that survived.
I can't live with the pain so Iput it out of my mind.
I want no connection toanything that's there.
So the Rebbe says you know, heassumed Rebbe was going to yell
at him, criticize him, call hima shaggits.
The Rebbe says you know, Iunderstand you 100%.
I feel the exact same way.
The boy was taken aback and theRebbe said to him let me ask
(07:13):
you, do you know, how do youthink I survived?
I lost many members of myfamily.
I lost a few hundred thousand.
I see them.
How do I go on?
How do I get up in the morning,how do I continue?
And the Rebbe told him afascinating gazal.
He said that the you know.
He said I always had a questionmost of my life that we know
(07:34):
that when Moshe Rebbeinu camedown from Har Sinai he had the
luchos.
He broke the luchos.
The passage says that he brokeit leinam in the eyes of
Clydesdore.
So he says what does that meanin the eyes of Clydesdore?
How do you break it?
We know that anything thatHashem made can never be
(07:56):
destroyed.
Hashem made the luchos.
How is it possible that it canbe broken into pieces?
So the Rebbe says it botheredme for so many years but finally
I understood.
First it says that whenbrothers came down to Yos they
thought they didn't know therewas a number two man in Israel.
And they came and he says theytook Shimon and he separated
(08:16):
them from Levi and he separatedthem from Lehi and they took him
to the prison and put him in ajail.
So Rashi said what did Leineimean?
It means it was only in frontof their eyes as soon as they
left to go back to Yaakov to go,bring Binyamin Yosef, let
Shimon out of prison, put onroyal garments on him, let him
stay in the palace.
(08:36):
He was fed and clothed, giveneverything possible in the world
.
So, into their eyes theythought he was in prison, but he
was completely not.
He says now I understood thatwhen it says that he broke the
luchos in front of their eyes,it was only in front of their
eyes.
It was never really broken.
The luchos were not broken, itwas impossible to break.
(08:58):
But the Christ wrote it lookedlike it was broken, laying
mayhem to their eyes.
And me.
I must hold this boy With this.
I survived Because I realizedmy Hasidim aren't gone, my
children and grandchildrenaren't gone, they're just laying
Nahum.
I just can't see them, butthey're here, they exist in this
(09:20):
incredible spiritual world, aneternal world.
They're there.
They're.
Just I can't see them, butthey're here.
He says.
And that's how I get up in themorning and I greet my children,
the ones that are here, theones that are not here, just, I
can't see them, but they're here.
And all my chasidim.
When I speak to my chasidimthat are sitting in the room, I,
(09:47):
when I speak to my Hasidim thatare sitting in the room.
I speak to the hundreds ofthousands that I can't see in
there, but they're in the room.
That's how I get through.
And when the boy heard that it'ssuch an impression on him that
he returned, that now that hereturned he became a devoted,
just like his father andgrandfather was, and grew up to
have an incredibly large,beautiful, wonderful family, so
I heard that it reallypenetrated with me and I said it
(10:10):
will lose.
That girl is not gone.
It's late at night, I don't seeher in the morning, but she's
there, I feel her.
And now that I feel herpresence, I will tell you that
my wife and I spend more time aday with her than we do with a
lot of other children.
(10:31):
We started this old soulorganization, the Zekhaneh
Shmosa my wife is busy with it15 hours a day.
She's busy with it sending outemails, reaching out, doing
things, doing whatever she does.
Zekhaneh Sh.
She's busy with it much morethan when she was busy, when she
was alive.
I brought the Shem, we builtthe shuls, we give shul and we
(10:53):
do things in her name.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
We constantly do things in her name.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I just wrote a sefer, published a sefer, a sefer
nishmasa.
These are all things that we dofor her.
This is her name, so she's nothere, but I am spending time
with her, I'm doing for her, I'mdoing something for her to
shine on more than I could do it.
She would be in front of me,that is.
It's not just something justcute, but it's real.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It's real, it's heartfelt and it's how we and
many other people get throughand I tell this to people all
the time that come to me mydaughters.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
You know I lost my child, I lost my daughter, I
lost my grand.
They lose.
You just don't see them.
But they're here and if youwant to, you'll feel them and
you'll see them.
You'll touch them all the timeI get constantly.
I had somebody yesterday sendme a photo.
They were in Eretz Israel.
They went to my daughter'scabin and you know they sent me
(11:49):
and they went to see the shulthat we built on her name.
They said they're just blownaway.
I said she's here.
This is how I interact with herand it's comforting, it gives
it to it, it's fulfilling andit's a way to get through every
single day and go through lifethat way.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
What happens when you see her?
Friends that I'm not sure howmany years ago this was, but now
are probably married with a fewchildren.
Like you think to yourself, ohshe's here just in a different
way, or do you think I want herhere that kind of way?
I want to see her married and amother.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I will tell you that time.
It's a very valid question.
I will tell you that peopletell me lost children, that they
have not been able to go to anyof their children's friends'
weddings or family simchas.
(12:49):
They just can't.
I think that the first weddingof a classmate of my daughter,
which was about she was engagedright after seminary, was about
two years after her paternity,maybe two and a half years, and
(13:12):
they called us up to come to thewedding.
Which was when?
And then the wedding and I gota call from.
I got a beautiful letter fromAkala who was getting married.
How much like you know that whatshe wants is there and she
can't plead that so it was notthere and that she wants.
You know that what she wants isthere and what she can't put,
that so it's not there, and thatshe wants.
You know I should get a birth,I'm going to hook her and that
was a struggle.
That was something where I justdidn't know how am I going to
(13:34):
do this?
And it was my wife.
She says, if you're doing it,we're going to do it, we're
going to go, we're going to givea simcha and that's what Sarota
wanted.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I think that first one was challenging after that.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I get such joy when I get an invitation from their
simchas.
When I participated in thechuppah, many of them, many of
her friends, I was one of them,one of her good friends, and I
spoke at Sheva Broers at anumber of her friends.
I remember and I spoke abouthow often how the collar came to
(14:13):
our home playing with mydaughter for Shabbos when they
were kids growing up.
I feel very much part of theirsymptoms.
There's really no sadness.
There's really no sadness.
It's joy for them.
It's not, you know, it's notsomething that you know.
We don't live sad lives.
We live very fulfilled lives.
You know, we feel a loss.
(14:33):
There are obviously days, youknow, that we feel it more.
Obviously, there's a certainthing that we would have that we
remember her, you know, like acertain situation.
We remember what it was likewith her and it was hard.
I remember that the first summershe was in Terrace in Kislev,
(14:55):
latous for Hanukkah, and so thatfirst summer, you know, we had
a summer home upstate and thesummer before she wasn't well,
she was in camp but she wasn'tfeeling well.
She spent all summer there and,you know, took care of her and
her presence was.
She loved that home.
She used to have her friendscome all the time.
(15:15):
I remember that first time wewalked into the house, that
first, that next summer, I wasstill saying, god, it's for her.
It was, you know, it felt, youknow, and my wife, you know,
wanted all the children to comeat Shabbos, my grandchildren to
be there.
But we felt, you know.
But now, now when I go to thathouse, I just I walk in there
(15:40):
and I feel like how much sheenjoyed it.
It brings me a sense of joy howmuch she loved going there, she
loved the country, she lovedcoming with her friends.
So it's the positive, it's theapproach, it's what your
thoughts are.
There are people who you know Isaid this at the.
There's an organization inBrooklyn started by two women,
(16:01):
two bereaved mothers, I thinkone's a Barbicanara, the other
one's a Lubavitcher woman andthey lost children and they met
somehow and they put togetherbereaved mothers.
So they had read something thatI wrote several years before my
daughter passed away and theyasked me to come speak to them
once or twice a year before YomTov.
And I came and I spoke to them.
(16:21):
I remember saying like what amI going to say to you Like, I
can't feel your pain.
And then they asked me to comeback.
It was the year after thecellar was in the terrace.
I came back and.
I said before I was, you know,an observer.
Now I'm a participant, ifyou're going to do what you feel
.
But I said that I don't want tofeel the way you feel.
(16:45):
Some of you are doing this for20 years.
That means you still can't stepout of it, that feeling of
being lost, the feeling ofmourning pain, that you can't
live that way.
You can't live that way and youlook at it in a certain
(17:07):
different perspective, as as soit was here.
Like you know she's.
Like I said, I spent more timea day.
I learned the Shana expertevery day.
I have to time that I wouldcount during a week that I am
putting in my life and I put infor so close.
We know that we put in for theother children together.
(17:28):
Just just know that is I saidthat is so comforting and so
valuable that we do this.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Did any of those women give you feedback on that?
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, a lot of them do a lot of them.
You know some of them ask, theycall me and you know, sometimes
I have a difficult day orwhatever, and I always try to
make myself available, difficultway or whatever, I always try
to make myself available.
And you know this is an articlethat I wrote that became
probably the most famous articlethat I wrote that you know,
(18:06):
which was called Wine Me.
That was the topic of thearticle.
What happened was that wherethis started from was that my
oldest daughter had a friendthat she was a best friend of
hers in seminary together andspent summers in camp together.
And this woman, she wasdiagnosed with cancer at a young
(18:29):
age and she had small children.
She didn't want her family toknow, so she kept it.
Just, her husband Didn't tellanybody, didn't tell all the
children, didn't tell neighbors,didn't tell other relatives,
and for six years she kept, youknow, quiet.
And then she was waiting.
Her youngest child was justgetting bar mitzvahed and she
waited for the bar mitzvah andthen she had very little time
(18:51):
left and that's when she toldher daughter, who was in Israel,
to come back and to be therefor the family.
And then she, her daughter wasmarried with a child and then
she went in to tell her youngestson her status, her situation.
So what happened was that I as Ionly knew her because she was
(19:14):
my daughter's very closefriend's mother and we met when
the girls were going to Israel.
We met at the airport sendingall of our daughters to seminary
.
We met them on camp visitingday.
We met them in Israel when wewere visiting our daughters.
That interaction was justreally a very brief social
interaction and we heard theterrible news that she'd passed
(19:37):
away.
So my daughter she said thatshe wanted my wife and I to go
and I said we didn't know, Ididn't really know them, but she
really wanted us to go, she wasso close to the family.
So we went.
When I came in there wereseveral rubruns from Flapper
sitting in the room with thehusband and I woke in and he
said you know, you really don'tknow my wife.
I said no, just a little bit, Ididn't really know her.
(19:59):
So he says you know, she's avery, very simple woman, very
simple, okay.
And then he says to me, he saysyou know, you have to do what
I'm ready to know.
And then she said, let's share.
Starts telling the son that youknow I'm sick, I've been sick
for a few years and I only havea few weeks left.
So the son, like right away, asany child would say, young
(20:23):
adult or child would say youknow, like why you, you're such
a special person, why you?
So the mother said thefollowing to her child.
She said you know, when adoctor six years ago gave me a
diagnosis, it was exactly thequestion I had why me?
And I started thinking about itand I said I was the first one
(20:45):
of all my high school classmatesto become a kala.
When I started to divert all myfriends, I was the only one I
didn't say Hashem.
Why me?
And then, when I got married, Iwas the only one I didn't say
Hashem.
Why me?
And then, when I got married, Iwas the first one of my friends
to be under the chuppah.
I didn't ask why me, I was thefirst one in the class to become
a mother.
I didn't ask why me.
(21:06):
Then I was the first in theclass, the first woman in the
class of all my friends, tobecome the walk my daughter down
the chuppah and then the firstone of all my classmates to
become a grandmother.
And I never once during thosetimes asked Hashem, why me?
So now, when I got thisdiagnosis, I said I'm not going
(21:27):
to start asking now, hashem, whyme?
That's a shorter time.
But she said that to her son.
The husband repeated it to meand I said whoa, whoa.
I said this is for Kali's room.
I didn't say a word.
I listened and he said you'renot going to knock me out.
I walked out, I went.
(21:47):
I'm not going to sleep tonight.
I sat down by the computer andI wrote an article called why Me
?
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And the next morning.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I called the daughter , the one that was good friends
with my daughter, and I said Iwrote an article.
Now it's so powerful, thisstatement your mother mentioned,
that I can put it without anyname, but it has so much meaning
(22:14):
if it's the name of a realperson, but your children.
It was a husband.
Her mother had parents stillalive.
I said I don't want anyone tofeel uncomfortable, I'm sending
it to you, I'm emailing it toyou.
I want you to show it to theentire family.
Anybody has any concern, anyfeelings that are uncomfortable,
that I will not put it in?
(22:35):
I spent three or four in.
I sent her Three or four days.
She got back to me.
She says the entire family, mygrandparents, my father, my
siblings, all feel such adisgust for my mother.
This would be Mikhasic people,so please go ahead.
So I sent it in to Mishpaka andI said stop the presses, this
is what you're putting in.
(22:56):
And I put itaka and I said stopthe presses, this is what
you're putting in.
And I put it in.
So I want to tell you what cameout of that article.
First, it was interesting.
It was a few years later.
Mishpaka had their 10th yearanniversary and they put out a
thing.
They put out to all the readers.
What they felt was the mostimpactful article 3,000 readers
responded.
97% of the readers.
What they felt was the mostimpactful article 3,000 readers
(23:17):
responded.
97% of the readers.
97% said it was an Argowinemade.
I think that is the firstarticle.
Now what happened?
What the feedback to me was?
It was about two years, twoyears after the article came out
, I get a email from a lady fromMuncie.
(23:38):
She sends me a thing.
I want to thank you for givingme back my family.
I had no idea what she wastalking about.
She goes can I call you?
She pulls me up, she tells me astory that she had a.
It was only her, it was onlyher, and her sister and her
(23:59):
father died when they were young, and then she had just gotten
married and her mother passedaway.
So her sister was three yearsyounger than her.
So all she had in life was hersister.
Her sister moved in with herand during the dating process
she wrote her sister down.
Then her sister got married andmoved back on the same block as
her and they were together.
(24:20):
The whole family, all they hadwas each other.
Unfortunately, her sister had adaughter and at six years old
got sick and unfortunatelypassed away, and her sister, the
mother of this child, was justinconsolable and she refused to
come out of her house.
For more than a year she did notleave her house.
(24:43):
They tried everything.
They had a very famous Rebbe inher distro.
It was very close to the family.
Came, specially sat with her,didn't help Therapist family.
She wasn't taking care of otherchildren, she just gave up on
life.
And well, this woman who sentme, this other woman, her older
(25:04):
daughter, got married, gotengaged.
I was getting married.
She says you have to.
I have nobody else, no otherrelatives, just you, my only
blood relative.
How can you not be at mywedding?
I can't, I'm not.
Anyway, she was just besideherself and then she was sharing
this with someone and a friendcame over to her and said you
know, listen, read this article.
So she takes the article.
(25:27):
The next morning she goes to hersister's house, she goes into
her sister's sitting chair inthe bedroom, she puts down the
article, the article why Me?
And she said just read it.
I'm not going to say anything,just please read it.
Three hours later, knock on herdoor.
Her sister's by the door.
Sister says come, I need you togo.
(25:48):
I don't have a dress for thewedding.
You've got to come.
Let's go shopping for a dressfor the wedding.
She says my sister.
My daughter got married.
My sister sat next to me.
I dance with her.
She danced with my daughter.
She says thank you for givingme back.
I tell the story only because Ijust don't know what resonates
with people.
Why me?
What?
What?
It was a simple message, notmine.
(26:09):
A message from a mother who wassaying goodbye to her child,
who was looking for a way togive her child, to give her
child, the kizuk, the ability togo through and deal with this
challenge that he was going togo through.
It's a powerful personal thingand other people took from it.
That's one of the things in mybook.
(26:30):
I wrote the book.
There's articles that I feltgave kizuk.
And again, why me?
I heard from all over the world.
People told me somehow itresonated with people.
So when someone loses, it'salways the first thing Hashem,
why?
What do I do different?
Why me?
It's such a one question to ask, because the questions are good
(26:53):
if you have answers.
No one can provide an answerfor it.
So it just, and the question isjust tears down a person.
It's waste of energy, waste ofyour mindset, and you focus on
something that cannot help, willnot help and doesn't just
doesn't help.
So that's never the question toask.
(27:13):
The question is what can I?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
do Hashem.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
What can I do to hold strong?
What can I do to give chizuk tomyself, to my family, to others
and the answer is do somethingspecial, focus on something that
would make a difference, thatwould be a source for that
person and will give youpleasure in doing it Pleasure.
You know a very dear neighborand a friend, almost like family
(27:44):
, of ours.
So they were building a newmikvah in Cedarhurst.
In the five towns- and it was agorgeous, beautiful mikvah and
him and some other people gottogether and this is right after
Sot it was just a few monthsafter Sot was put here and they
dedicated the mikvah to Sot'smemory.
So my wife, you know a lot onher plate, a lot to do, but
(28:09):
she's a volunteer, she goes,she's one of the women that goes
to work at the mikvah once,twice a week and that's because
she feels close to sorrow.
She feels that when a womangoes to the mikvah, she's going
there.
She makes a brothel, her wifeis there.
She feels that it's likeanother source of sorrow.
It gives her such.
Her wife does not want to miss.
(28:30):
It's like we have a wedding.
She calls people to make sureshe can do another night.
It's just important to her andyou know it's, it's, it's just
another it's not even healingit's just, it's a connection.
It's a connection and you know,the connection is so real that I
will tell you that.
You know, obviously, theemotional connection as time
(28:51):
moves on that's that a kush bookof creators that way.
But the deep connection thatwhen you do, when you evolve,
when you do and you think ofways to do, makes an incredible
difference and it's healing andit lets people get through
anything and go through and keepon building and going from
there.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Can I ask you about?
You know, not everyone, mostpeople don't have the
connections or the resources tohave mikvahs and shuls and you
know organizations to be made,you know the children.
So, like there's still so muchto do, that's small and little
and doesn't have to be public,that can still create that
connection and that you knowthat 100%.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
You know that there's parents who are parents that
don't have any means, and thiswas their only child.
They lost their only child.
I think he was 13, just a weekbefore his bat mitzvah, maybe,
and he was sick for severalyears.
But they have no other childrenand you know that can destroy
(29:58):
anybody, you know.
And what do they do?
So they actually took uponthemselves something that's you
know, they saw when they were inthe hospital Other
organizations there's HighLifeline, of course, there's
Biko Olin, there's people who doso much for it, but they just
(30:21):
decided that they're going to dosomething.
The two of them, noorganization.
They don't send out ads, theydon't collect money for it, the
husband and wife themselves.
Every Friday she preparesShabbos Thursday night or early
Friday morning, but they spend agood part of Friday afternoon
(30:42):
going to certain hospitals wherechildren are and just do
something for them for Shabbos Ahome cook something, a little
toy, something that they made,just small things.
But they bring smiles which,again, like I said, they have a
high life and they haveincredible musicians that do
great things, but little littlethings that would almost say
(31:05):
it's insignificant.
But they come home for Shabbosenthused, inspired, uplifted.
And she says that when shelights Shabbos candles and she
lights a candle for her sonafter Shabbos, she still does.
She just feels a sense of joywhen she does it.
There's no money, it doesn'trequire organization, it doesn't
(31:29):
require connections, it's justa little quiet something.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
And the only reason why I know about it is because
they had asked me.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I didn't know that I don't know about this.
They called me because theyheard that there was a family
from Israel here with a sickchild in one of the hospitals.
They usually have a good handlewith a child.
They didn't know where.
They want to know, know if Iwould know where they are and
how they could get in touch.
They wanted to come to thisparticular child.
The French Shore was probablyeven harder for the child that
(32:02):
wanted to come, and so theystarted telling me what they do
and I said incredible.
I said I'd like to write aboutit, absolutely not, can't write
about it.
They don't want me to writeabout it.
You know, I want them to talkabout what people can do.
So you know, I'll mention itwithout, of course, their name.
But they do not want.
They say this is our personalthing.
It's between, I remember thehusband was telling this to
(32:25):
myself, my wife and my son.
So it's finding something to dothat gives you, gives you the
kama, gives you a sense ofpurpose, a sense of feeling, a
good feeling, and it isincredibly therapeutic,
therapeutic.
You know some people.
People need to do whatever theycan.
(32:46):
We didn't go to loss therapy.
We didn't go to and speak toprofessionals.
This is what we found and wewere looking at something.
I was sort of looking him up.
I wrote about it so many times,about it how it just came out
of the blue, this opportunity,and just the idea clicked.
I remember I told my wife thisthing we should keep up with
(33:07):
singles.
They should be able to dump.
But all of a sudden, this phonecall.
My wife's first reaction waswhat does it have to do with a
girl who's just 17?
What does it have to do withher?
And I said so, I'm not the same, I don't know.
Like it just came out of myhead.
I said I don't know if shewasn't self-contained marriage.
She was 17, she, she dreamedthat, she loved her, she was an
(33:33):
incredible aunt, or.
But you can have it.
So it's going to improve thisand result in a couple of good
results.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
You just got lost.
You like faded out.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
What you hear me.
Hello, I got to get something.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah now.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
I think so.
I said that.
You know I should remember mywife's reaction.
It was when I told her thatidea.
She said what does that do witha 17 year old girl, like
couples that aren't children,older single girls and like what
does that do for her?
What does that do?
I said, and I said to her,because if we, she wasn't so
good to have, like a man, haveher own family, but if we could
make, we could do something thata couple will have a baby, that
(34:13):
will be her legacy, that willbe her generations.
And I said, even if we do oneor two, let's try it.
We do one or two.
That was about seven and a halfyears ago.
We're at about 7,000 engagementmarriages and about 1,700,
1,800 babies born that we knowof.
And almost every day there'sanother engagement, another baby
(34:36):
, another couple that's nowpregnant from this old soul.
I mean it just.
You know, when I said it, Isaid and I said this at the last
service, last yurt site.
We had some people there, therewas a small group at the
cemetery and I said it's allright.
I said Shemayim, you have hadmore descendants.
You have more descendants thanpeople who lived 150 years.
(35:00):
You have thousands, baruch,hashem, of children being born
from this that came from it's.
It's incredibly wonderfulfeeling to know that, that that
we're able to do this for them,and again, it was just an idea,
it came it, and that we're ableto do this for them.
And again, it was just an idea,it came, it didn't require, it
wasn't, but you know.
So again, you don't have tohave a plan.
There's something small,something, as an example I just
(35:21):
gave, it makes such a world ofdifference.
And then it's what, as Istarted with what the Yemayem
has said to that board, it'sonly lay mayhem, it's only I
don't see them, but they're here.
My entire family is here, I seethem all here.
You just can't see them, butthey're here.
That is an incredible way to gothrough life, uplifting way to
(35:42):
go through life.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And how do you keep her alive for all your
grandchildren and everythingthat they should know?
Her not just as an organizationbut as a real person?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Well, I'll tell you.
You know, this really is acredit to my children we have.
You know, our name is Sahola,so it's Baruch Hashem.
I mean, we never, ever, had toask our other children.
You know, when you have a child, they don't have a name.
(36:15):
We never had to ask our otherchildren.
You know, when you have a childthey don't have a name.
They would never have to ask.
It was the.
I have three married daughtersand two married sons.
All of them have a cellar.
Every one of them.
They had another name, ofcourse, because she died young.
(36:35):
They all have a cellar.
Every one of them.
They had another name, ofcourse, because she died young.
They all have a cellar.
One of my children, you know,can't call her a cellar, it's
too hard for him to do that, sohe calls her Sari, but the name
is we'll have the name of acellar One of my daughters who
lives in.
My third daughter, jackson, justhad a baby just two weeks ago.
So she, she named her, um.
(36:57):
Her second daughter, sarah,because of my, my son was
grandmother, so, uh, we um, sowhat she did was just this new
baby.
She named her.
Uh, Sarah's name had two names.
Sarah's name was Sarah Kaya.
So my other kids gave the nameSarah Kaya.
(37:18):
Plus they added another name.
So she named a different nameof a different grandmother and
used the name Kaya.
So look, this way, she hassomething for Sarah.
So all my children have youknow, and that is you know, it's
.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
She never had an added-on name before she was
left there.
Sorry, starla, never.
Had you never added a name ontoher?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
No, never added no, you know it was.
It was never did.
The truth is that I never did.
But when she was born, you knowwe had different names than
mine.
But when she was born, thisproblem that she had was right
away she was in the NICU.
So I was trying to think whatto do, what to name her.
(38:02):
So what I did was the parasha.
She was born the week betweenChai, sarah and Tolos between
that week.
So I named her Sarah, chayaSarah was Sarah, and Nainu and
Chaya that she should be able tohave a long life.
(38:23):
So Chaya was really a name thatwas given for that.
We never had a name.
It was, you know, that wasn'tso quickly in the last few
months, things went down but wedidn't actually do that.
But so everybody, like I said,so all the children, naming is
very important.
It's important when you knowwhen it's so on the yard site.
(38:45):
So we, you know, originally Iworked the first year at the
yard site to bring all mychildren to come to the camper,
but well, the appearance ofsmall children is not easy to
pick up and go there to stroll.
But it's not a sad day for me.
It's like they do something forSarah.
(39:06):
One of my daughters has Sarah'sbirthday.
She buys kids special breakfast.
They have a special in honor ofSarah's birthday.
So it's a joyous, it's like ajoyous thing to remember that
you know and you know, so youknow.
That's the idea, you know Imean.
Some of them, of course,remember her.
The ones that were older,grandchildren, still remember
(39:29):
her and have very fond memoriesof her.
But the other ones, the youngerones who didn't know her
remember, or the ones who boughtafterwards, it's she existed
and she's there and she'ssomething now.
But it's not a sad occasion,it's a joyous occasion.
We do what we have to do, butit's remembering in a positive
(39:54):
way.
That's what it is, it's not sad, it's positive.
Like I said, it's a kashpa whoyou know.
They decided you know.
It's interesting to say onething that after Settlers of
Terrorists.
So we went, I went to a showwith my wife and we made the
(40:19):
rounds.
I went very close to the man inthe gedolim and we went to
everybody the Seder, the Svartik, the Gedolim.
We saw everybody.
I was both going to say thatyou know, some said things that
were helpful, some didn't, someweren't able to.
But I remember that at thattime I used to say I dab in the
(40:43):
notes of the kosel, so I used toIdavenate, to the Coastal, so
me and Idavenate.
So Ramesh Shapiro was there,ramesh Shapiro's home of Raka.
So one of the people there veryclose to him was in the store
and he says why don't you go toRamesh Shapiro?
So I said you know what?
I really don't know him and Iknow that he's not a talker, he
(41:06):
he's not a person that gave alot of cheer, but he wasn't a
one-on-one and so I didn't talkto him.
It was, I think, two yearslater.
Two years later, mishka wasnifter passed away and I started
reading things about him and Iwas flabbergasted Because when I
started reading about his life.
He writes there that I knewthat he had come to America and
(41:27):
spent a few years in America.
I didn't know why.
I just knew he came here forthe opening of Yeshiva.
I knew that he opened upStanford Yeshiva.
He was a Yeshiva there.
Then he went back there toIsrael.
What I didn't know was he camehere because his daughter Sheva
her name was Sheva was very sickand he came with special
(41:48):
treatments and small cateringfor her and he spent a few years
here in treatments andunfortunately she passed away.
She was in for terrorists andhe went back while he was here
and then he went back and then,once he went back when she
passed away, he stayed there andwhen I saw that, I said I had
(42:08):
an opportunity to talk to himand I felt like I didn't have a
relationship and what's thepoint?
He was the one man I could haveunderstood.
He always spoke about it and hesaid something so incredible at
the funeral that I had seenwritten up and I spoke to people
two people who were there withhim.
(42:28):
She had an incredible thingthat he said At the Leviah.
He said that I have a question.
I have a question on HaKadoshBaruch Hu.
The question on HaKadosh BaruchHu is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu
violated his own Torah.
The question about the KodeshBaruch Hu is that the Kodesh
Baruch Hu violated his own Torah.
The Torah says we know thatthere are three partners to a
(42:50):
person that's born mother,father and Hashem.
And there's a halach inShechanarach, in Koshem Mishpat,
that if two people are partners, one partner cannot do
something take, take what theythink that they're a partner and
and sell it, do something withit without checking with the
(43:10):
other partner.
You have no right to do it onyour own.
You have to ask the otherpartner.
So the question is how didHashem decide to take my
daughter with my wife and otherpartners?
You can't take what I ask.
You never asked us.
How could you do that?
You violated your own Torah.
What an incredible powerfulquestion.
And he said the answer isbecause there is a shita that
(43:35):
says an opinion that ifsomething is so valuable for
that partnership, that isnon-question, it's like an
annunciated for sure.
You would agree.
You don't have to askpermission.
For example, you have something.
You have a piece of jewelrythat's worth $1,000, we're both
(43:55):
partners in it, and someoneoffers you $10,000 for that.
You don't have to call up yourpartner because you know he's
going to jump.
What are you calling me for?
Just sell it.
He says obviously Hashem didnot have to ask us his other
partners because what he did formy daughter's neshama was so
valuable for her, so important.
(44:18):
We don't understand that, butif we did, we would all 100%
agree to what Akash Berku did.
So, akash Berku, we understand.
We don't understand, but weunderstand, we agree, we agree.
That's what he said.
At the airport, on the way goingback to Dubai, I saw this.
(44:41):
It was such a good and Iactually wrote it up in an
article afterwards for peoplewho didn't know, didn't know
about it.
Gave chizuk to so many people.
Some people called me about itafterwards, but I said I could
have gone over to him at thecoast and said can we talk to
you?
He would have spent hours withus because we were insane.
I just asked him.
I Hashem, I did not.
They know this bad about him.
(45:02):
Hashem, for some reason, didn'twant me to talk to him and I
didn't.
But this thing gave us someposts Afterwards, gave us some
incredible things, some powerful, powerful things.
And it's interesting, the lastaddress that he gave he spoke at
Harnov and one of his students,who was a student for many,
(45:24):
many, many years, had lost achild.
They were making a seum I thinkit was a Yotzeit seum, end of
year or end of years for thatchild, and they asked him to
come and he spoke.
He was very, very, very sickand he spoke and he spoke about
his daughter.
Like he spoke about hisdaughter as if it happened the
day before.
So, while he may have been aman who traveled the world
(45:46):
Russia and America and Europe,giving shum all over the world
on the most incredibly difficulttopics, but his daughter was
front and center of his mind, inhis heart, his neshama.
that was the last thing he spokeabout, his last public address,
so that was an incredible thing.
He spoke about his last publicaddress, so that was an
incredible thing, but anincredible message as well to
(46:08):
find something he gave Gizik,and he gave Gizik after he was
no longer here.
I got Gizik from it, and I knowmany, many other people who
heard it from me, who read whatI wrote, got Gizik from it as
well.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
My brother died at the age of 14 from leukemia and
it was like after he was niftermy father went on such a journey
to be okay with it.
He was my only brother, he wasthe youngest.
There's like a lot of thingsthat you know added the pain to
the pain.
And it's just funny because I'mtalking about it, because I was
just talking to to someoneabout it, and he wrote a whole
(46:44):
like journal.
He wrote a whole journal tohelp him through it and when I
was reading it, my, my instinctwas like so much of this stuff
is almost like what girls learnin high school, like a lot of
the things like I learned myfashion or whatever.
Like it sounds like so simple,basic, whatever.
But I know that my father likereally really lived it and my
boss, abay Haken, abay MosheHaken, read through it recently
(47:05):
and he was like blown away by it.
He's like, oh my gosh, yourfather.
Like you see how he made it soreal and so much part of his
life and he lived my father foranother 11 years and then he was
nifted like very suddenly heactually died.
At my cousin's wedding hedanced with my grandfather like
the hassan's father.
You know the, his father, thehassan's grandfather, and he was
(47:26):
walking away.
My brother-in-law said itlooked like he was jostled by
people and he was falling, buthe just had a heart attack and
like died and it was like I mean, it's very painful, but like I
was telling people it's like yousee the growth, like he just
like climbed, you know, on theladder from one step to the next
and he reached the, the top,like Hashem just took him, like
there was, like nothing more, sowhatever, like I guess I don't
know when you're talking andeverything it's like, reminds me
(47:50):
of that.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Shmuel, a friend of mine, told me once a dear friend
of mine, he was very close toShmuel Birnbaum, the Shiva of
Mir Shivas.
For most of his life he losttwo sons.
He lost two sons One, very sick, passed away from cancer.
(48:11):
Another one was killed in anaccident.
He was in a destroyer.
He was hiking, touring whatever, in a Russian guard, whatever.
Whatever exactly happened, noone knows for sure, but he was
killed.
So he suffered a lot.
So one day Rafa would takedifferent opportunities to drive
(48:37):
him.
He had a chance to talk to him,so his brother was driving him.
One time, when they got to theplace they were going to, shmuel
turned to him and says Tell me.
He says, do you believe inHashem?
What?
What kind of question?
Of course I believe in Hashem.
What kind of question is that?
He says Well, what did you gothrough in life to know if you
(49:00):
really believe in Hashem?
Tell me, what did you go, whatdifficulty did you go through
that could show that you reallybelieve in Hashem?
It's a very powerful, powerfulstatement.
I also wrote that in an articleone time.
You know we believe in Hashem.
We learn, like I said, you gothrough everything.
In high school, you learneverything.
We learned all the Pashya, welearned Shkafa we.
(49:22):
We learned, we learned we couldsay it by heart.
We know everything.
But until you go through it,until you're faced with a
challenge that will show how areal life.
If you're angry at Hashem, ifyou can't go on with life, if
you struggle for getting throughthe day, then you don't really
(49:43):
believe in Hashem.
Because if you struggle forgetting through the day, then
you don't really believe inHashem.
Because if you did, you know,it's like that's going to tell
you the world.
You know it.
Just, it's not a day.
The news goes on, that justshow all over the world and you
know, we hope Trump will do this, we hope Trump will do that.
What about this?
He should have done this, heshould have done this or that.
(50:07):
Hashem runs this world.
You believe it.
So how do you get sosidetracked and think that it's
up to individuals to makedecisions on what's going to
affect Christ or the world?
It's Nesianos, but it's part ofthe channel.
If you believe in Hashem, youbelieve it.
It's real, it's real.
Say I know it's from you, Iaccept it.
It real, it's real, I know it'sfrom you.
Next up, it doesn't mean thatit's easy doesn't mean it's.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
You know, sometimes it might have to just be lip
service till you really feel it.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah, great people could be of its kind to get up
at his, at the Leviah of his son, and say his beloved son, and
say that I had so much love formy son.
Now, I take that part that thatI had so much love for my son,
and now, hashem, I take thatpart that I loved him, that part
of my Neshama that I loved him,and I save it now for you, I
give it over to you.
How is God going to say that?
(50:53):
Most of us can't say somethinglike that.
But you know what?
What we can say is that,shabbat, we believe you, we
believe in you, we're connectedenough, we accept what happened.
We know that it's for somereason, like the G-d said you
didn't ask me, but we know it'sfor the betterment of both my
(51:16):
G-d and myself.
One day we'll find out the G-dof G-d and we needed.
Day we'll find out the god ofthe country that they're going
to show up for this generation.
That needed a tico and that wasridiculous and we needed to go
through this challenge.
So we should become strongerand do things.
But we know who knows thosethings, that we're able to do it
(51:36):
.
You know it's because of thethings that's replaced to do
things.
You know it's.
You know Rav called me up afterthe terrible tragedy in Miron.
Terrible, terrible tragedy.
It's coming up on the outsidejust this week.
(51:58):
So you know, I got a call fromthe editors of the spot, said
like the whole class waswheeling, I suppose I was
stopping, not printing.
We just don't know.
Do we need to write?
We need to do something.
I said who can write?
We were all stunned and justshocked and beyond.
They said we just need you gotto do something.
And I stayed up all night and Isat down and I just wondered,
(52:23):
no, second, no, no.
Then all of a sudden it justlike opened because Roku helped
me and it just put out and itjust sent it in and they, it
just said this this is thepublisher pulled me up.
He says you don't know, I tookit home to my family to discuss
it because you know, I know Ishepherd the words in my mouth.
But a love from one of the mostprominent of my brother,
(52:47):
wilhelm Kleisler, pulled me upand says I couldn't, I had no
words, I didn't know how todiscuss it.
How do you find the words forthis?
Speaker 1 (52:57):
I said you know what?
Speaker 3 (52:59):
I said when you, when you're trained, when you need
to find the words for yourself,give yourself a khama and your
family a khama.
There's a place deep down youcan go to and from there you can
draw.
And I said I never would havebeen able to do it if I didn't
have the ability to draw out.
You know, dealing with our ownfamily situation, our own pain,
(53:24):
and that's where it comes from.
It comes from a place there andI told my Mary Sifton I wish I
could do this.
I don't know.
I hope that you would neverhave that need to be able to
have to dig down deeply to lookfor that, to be able to find the
right words.
But that's where it comes from.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Okay, so I know we have to end, but before we end,
should we just talk about yourbook and, like the most popular
article from your book, what'sthe name of it?
Speaker 3 (53:49):
again, it's called Race of Hope.
It was published by Arts Girl.
It came out in September ofthis year.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
And what really it was, is that in over the years.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
I thought it was a piece of the different personal
situations and what really wasis that in over the years the
guy write articles of differentsituations, personal situations
or things in Israel that takeplace, and that's what resonated
with people and it reallystarted with Mayer.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Zadai was a home abruptly.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
He used to put me up.
If you read something I wrotein the Jewish services, I want
you gotta put it.
You gotta write a book.
You gotta put this in a book.
I said I don't like books, Iwrite articles.
If there's something thattouches me, I write.
I'm not interested and I didn'tknow.
He asked me a few times.
He didn't see me and then,before she passed away, his son
took me to Dahlia and Dahliaasked me a few times.
(54:58):
I think it was really when I gotthat letter from that person
about the why Me article.
That lady wrote me aboutrestoring her family.
I said you and we workedtogether with her and thank you
and I thank Hashem.
You know, which is justliterally, if you ask me.
This was last night.
Last night I got a call fromsomeone in Barak, a Rockaway,
(55:25):
who left Israel.
This morning he has been in afew of his services.
You know I have a number ofpeople I know that show up, gone
through so much.
The New York Cousin that losttheir son, another one who lost
a young wife, cast a greatpromise.
I want to do something.
(55:45):
I'm reading your books there.
I look in.
It says I just read 10 books togive out to these people.
I know they're going to getbusy, so it's that's what it's
for.
That's what we live for.
We live for to try to help wecan, and so that's what the
purpose of the book is andthat's what I hope that it's
accomplished.
People read it, find what theyneed in there that will help
(56:08):
them get through a difficulttime.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Okay, thank you so so much for coming on.
I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
Pleasure.
Thank you for what you do.
Positive lifestyle, goodphysical people.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
That's what we live for.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
We live for to try to help Jews, help you.
That's what the Afghan religionwrites, that our role in life,
our job in this world, is tolift up other people.
It's your most credit to me.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
You've just listened to an episode of the Relief from
Grief podcast with MiriamRiviet, brought to you by Mayrim
.
For more episodes, visit theMayrim website at wwwmayrimorg.
Help us reach more people whomight benefit from this podcast.
If you know someone who couldfind it helpful, please share it
with them.
If you have questions orcomments for the speaker, or if
(57:13):
you'd like to suggest a guestfor the podcast, we'd love to
hear from you.
Email us atrelieffromgriefatmayrimorg.
We look forward to having youjoin us in the next episode.
Welcome to the Relief from Grief podcast, hosted by
Mrs Miriam Rebiet and brought toyou by Mayrim.
Mayrim is an organizationdedicated to supporting families
who have experienced the lossof a child.
It was founded by IloyNishmat's, nechama Liba and
Miriam Holman.
Despite her illness, miriamdevoted herself to addressing
(00:22):
the needs of parents andsiblings grappling with the
immense pain of losing a child.
She felt this loss deeply,having experienced it firsthand
when her older sister, nechamaLiba, passed away.
Mehrim continues to uplift andexpand on the work Miriam began,
a mission carried forward byher parents with great
dedication.
(00:43):
If you have any questions orcomments for the speaker, or if
you'd like to suggest a guestfor the podcast, please email us
at relieffromgrief at mayrimorg.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Hi everybody.
Thank you so much for joiningme here today on the Relief from
Grief by Mayrim podcast.
Today there's Reb ChaimAriyezev GinsburgGinsburg, the
Rev of the Chagachayim TowerCenter of Cedarhurst.
Yes, thank you so so much forcoming on.
I really appreciate you comingon.
(01:18):
Okay, so you know it could be.
It was the first article that Iread of yours, or it could be.
It was the first one that Iread of yours, or it could be.
It was the first one that Inoticed your name.
I don't know, but it made suchan impression on me.
I think the title was it's notthe way it's supposed to be.
Do you know what I'm talkingabout?
And you wrote about how peoplecome into your study all the
time and say you know, I wasn'tsupposed to have this amount of
kids.
My shell bias wasn't supposedto be like this, whatever it was
(01:40):
.
And you wrote about like, about, like what, like what, what
does that mean?
I, it is supposed to be thisway, like, this is your life.
So it made such an impressionon me.
I read it so many years ago andI'm I still remember it.
So I guess if we could startlike you know for for sure, it's
not in anyone's you knowsupposed to be to lose a child.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So I guess if we could talk about, like, how your
Mechazik parents, when they gothrough such a loss and when
they come to you Well, I don'tknow if there's a magic formula,
but the question that you'reasking, besides the two hats,
besides being a rabbi, I'm surepeople come up up to me.
I have all kinds of situations,difficult and not so difficult.
(02:30):
Also, really, I don't have abereaved father.
My wife and I lost our17-year-old daughter, sarula
Alashon, and it's a perspectivefrom real life to understand how
to, and the truth is that it'sthe same.
(02:50):
What you tell people as youtell yourself is the same thing.
It's the same concepts, thesame thoughts that go through my
mind and I think it's a process, but I think it's probably the
most important thing to keep inmind is that you know we're not
(03:12):
in control because Brokaw runsthis world, because Brokaw
doesn't give anyone anythingthat they don't need.
We have no understanding of whyLife comes from all kinds of
challenges, big and small, andwe're not given to try to
(03:36):
understand why it happened to us, because it's frustrating.
There's no answers and youspend a life just wasting away
thinking about why and couldhave been different, should have
been different.
What if I did somethingdifferent?
Those thoughts are so numbingand so wasteful.
You don't grow from it.
(03:57):
You don't grow from it and youdon't heal from it.
There has to be anunderstanding that when things
happen, especially things ofthis type of nature, it's like I
Zwergu.
There's a reason why ithappened.
It's way beyond our humancomprehension and we have to
face the challenges.
And facing the challenges is anumber of different ways.
(04:17):
One of the ways that I know formyself and my wife for sure is
with an incredible story thefamed gay rabbi, mams.
Gay rabbi was the all I knowthey gave.
Mams was the gay rabbi inEurope before the war.
(04:39):
It was the biggest Hasidus inEurope.
He came and survivedmiraculously.
There's a book written abouthis survival, how he was able to
escape.
Some of his children didn'tmake it out, some did.
And he came back to Israel andhe rebuilt a literal few
(05:01):
remaining Hasidim from hundredsand hundreds of thousands of
Gerer Hasidim and we, hundredsof thousands of Ger HaChasidim,
and we built and we built upwith Ger.
Today it's the largest Hasidimin the world today.
So there's something incrediblethat he had said.
There was a young teenage boywho, one of the Ger HaChasidim,
(05:23):
one of the Kabbalim.
The Rebbe bumped into him inthe streets of Yerushalayim and
he recognized him and he calledhim by his Yiddish name.
The boy just didn't even answerhim.
And then he called him by hislast name and the boy just,
finally, he called him by thename of his father.
He said you're the son of.
(05:43):
And the boy turned aroundClearly was estranged from
anything.
He described Totally notreligious anymore, surely not
ger or chassid anymore.
No, yarmulke, no, nothing.
And he said I recognize you.
And the boy said I have nothingto do.
I don't want anything to dowith any, anything to do with
(06:06):
Hashem, with anybody connectedto Hashem, any religious people.
I want nothing to do with it.
After the war, excuse me.
So the person was very takenand this person came from an
established family, a prominentG-d.
I've seen them for generations.
So he went to tell the Rebbeand the Rebbe said please go
find him and tell him I want tospeak to him.
(06:27):
So he went and searched andfound Rebbe Urim and convinced
him somehow to come to the Rebbe.
When the Rebbe came to the Rebbe, the Rebbe said you know, I
know your father and yourgrandfather and your
great-grandfather.
And he said Rebbe, I losteverybody.
I was the only one left in myfamily.
We had 160 relatives who livedall in the same town.
(06:50):
I'm the only one that survived.
I can't live with the pain so Iput it out of my mind.
I want no connection toanything that's there.
So the Rebbe says you know, heassumed Rebbe was going to yell
at him, criticize him, call hima shaggits.
The Rebbe says you know, Iunderstand you 100%.
I feel the exact same way.
The boy was taken aback and theRebbe said to him let me ask
(07:13):
you, do you know, how do youthink I survived?
I lost many members of myfamily.
I lost a few hundred thousand.
I see them.
How do I go on?
How do I get up in the morning,how do I continue?
And the Rebbe told him afascinating gazal.
He said that the you know.
He said I always had a questionmost of my life that we know
(07:34):
that when Moshe Rebbeinu camedown from Har Sinai he had the
luchos.
He broke the luchos.
The passage says that he brokeit leinam in the eyes of
Clydesdore.
So he says what does that meanin the eyes of Clydesdore?
How do you break it?
We know that anything thatHashem made can never be
(07:56):
destroyed.
Hashem made the luchos.
How is it possible that it canbe broken into pieces?
So the Rebbe says it botheredme for so many years but finally
I understood.
First it says that whenbrothers came down to Yos they
thought they didn't know therewas a number two man in Israel.
And they came and he says theytook Shimon and he separated
(08:16):
them from Levi and he separatedthem from Lehi and they took him
to the prison and put him in ajail.
So Rashi said what did Leineimean?
It means it was only in frontof their eyes as soon as they
left to go back to Yaakov to go,bring Binyamin Yosef, let
Shimon out of prison, put onroyal garments on him, let him
stay in the palace.
(08:36):
He was fed and clothed, giveneverything possible in the world
.
So, into their eyes theythought he was in prison, but he
was completely not.
He says now I understood thatwhen it says that he broke the
luchos in front of their eyes,it was only in front of their
eyes.
It was never really broken.
The luchos were not broken, itwas impossible to break.
(08:58):
But the Christ wrote it lookedlike it was broken, laying
mayhem to their eyes.
And me.
I must hold this boy With this.
I survived Because I realizedmy Hasidim aren't gone, my
children and grandchildrenaren't gone, they're just laying
Nahum.
I just can't see them, butthey're here, they exist in this
(09:20):
incredible spiritual world, aneternal world.
They're there.
They're.
Just I can't see them, butthey're here.
He says.
And that's how I get up in themorning and I greet my children,
the ones that are here, theones that are not here, just, I
can't see them, but they're here.
And all my chasidim.
When I speak to my chasidimthat are sitting in the room, I,
(09:47):
when I speak to my Hasidim thatare sitting in the room.
I speak to the hundreds ofthousands that I can't see in
there, but they're in the room.
That's how I get through.
And when the boy heard that it'ssuch an impression on him that
he returned, that now that hereturned he became a devoted,
just like his father andgrandfather was, and grew up to
have an incredibly large,beautiful, wonderful family, so
I heard that it reallypenetrated with me and I said it
(10:10):
will lose.
That girl is not gone.
It's late at night, I don't seeher in the morning, but she's
there, I feel her.
And now that I feel herpresence, I will tell you that
my wife and I spend more time aday with her than we do with a
lot of other children.
(10:31):
We started this old soulorganization, the Zekhaneh
Shmosa my wife is busy with it15 hours a day.
She's busy with it sending outemails, reaching out, doing
things, doing whatever she does.
Zekhaneh Sh.
She's busy with it much morethan when she was busy, when she
was alive.
I brought the Shem, we builtthe shuls, we give shul and we
(10:53):
do things in her name.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
We constantly do things in her name.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I just wrote a sefer, published a sefer, a sefer
nishmasa.
These are all things that we dofor her.
This is her name, so she's nothere, but I am spending time
with her, I'm doing for her, I'mdoing something for her to
shine on more than I could do it.
She would be in front of me,that is.
It's not just something justcute, but it's real.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
It's real, it's heartfelt and it's how we and
many other people get throughand I tell this to people all
the time that come to me mydaughters.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
You know I lost my child, I lost my daughter, I
lost my grand.
They lose.
You just don't see them.
But they're here and if youwant to, you'll feel them and
you'll see them.
You'll touch them all the timeI get constantly.
I had somebody yesterday sendme a photo.
They were in Eretz Israel.
They went to my daughter'scabin and you know they sent me
(11:49):
and they went to see the shulthat we built on her name.
They said they're just blownaway.
I said she's here.
This is how I interact with herand it's comforting, it gives
it to it, it's fulfilling andit's a way to get through every
single day and go through lifethat way.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
What happens when you see her?
Friends that I'm not sure howmany years ago this was, but now
are probably married with a fewchildren.
Like you think to yourself, ohshe's here just in a different
way, or do you think I want herhere that kind of way?
I want to see her married and amother.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I will tell you that time.
It's a very valid question.
I will tell you that peopletell me lost children, that they
have not been able to go to anyof their children's friends'
weddings or family simchas.
(12:49):
They just can't.
I think that the first weddingof a classmate of my daughter,
which was about she was engagedright after seminary, was about
two years after her paternity,maybe two and a half years, and
(13:12):
they called us up to come to thewedding.
Which was when?
And then the wedding and I gota call from.
I got a beautiful letter fromAkala who was getting married.
How much like you know that whatshe wants is there and she
can't plead that so it was notthere and that she wants.
You know that what she wants isthere and what she can't put,
that so it's not there, and thatshe wants.
You know I should get a birth,I'm going to hook her and that
was a struggle.
That was something where I justdidn't know how am I going to
(13:34):
do this?
And it was my wife.
She says, if you're doing it,we're going to do it, we're
going to go, we're going to givea simcha and that's what Sarota
wanted.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I think that first one was challenging after that.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
I get such joy when I get an invitation from their
simchas.
When I participated in thechuppah, many of them, many of
her friends, I was one of them,one of her good friends, and I
spoke at Sheva Broers at anumber of her friends.
I remember and I spoke abouthow often how the collar came to
(14:13):
our home playing with mydaughter for Shabbos when they
were kids growing up.
I feel very much part of theirsymptoms.
There's really no sadness.
There's really no sadness.
It's joy for them.
It's not, you know, it's notsomething that you know.
We don't live sad lives.
We live very fulfilled lives.
You know, we feel a loss.
(14:33):
There are obviously days, youknow, that we feel it more.
Obviously, there's a certainthing that we would have that we
remember her, you know, like acertain situation.
We remember what it was likewith her and it was hard.
I remember that the first summershe was in Terrace in Kislev,
(14:55):
latous for Hanukkah, and so thatfirst summer, you know, we had
a summer home upstate and thesummer before she wasn't well,
she was in camp but she wasn'tfeeling well.
She spent all summer there and,you know, took care of her and
her presence was.
She loved that home.
She used to have her friendscome all the time.
(15:15):
I remember that first time wewalked into the house, that
first, that next summer, I wasstill saying, god, it's for her.
It was, you know, it felt, youknow, and my wife, you know,
wanted all the children to comeat Shabbos, my grandchildren to
be there.
But we felt, you know.
But now, now when I go to thathouse, I just I walk in there
(15:40):
and I feel like how much sheenjoyed it.
It brings me a sense of joy howmuch she loved going there, she
loved the country, she lovedcoming with her friends.
So it's the positive, it's theapproach, it's what your
thoughts are.
There are people who you know Isaid this at the.
There's an organization inBrooklyn started by two women,
(16:01):
two bereaved mothers, I thinkone's a Barbicanara, the other
one's a Lubavitcher woman andthey lost children and they met
somehow and they put togetherbereaved mothers.
So they had read something thatI wrote several years before my
daughter passed away and theyasked me to come speak to them
once or twice a year before YomTov.
And I came and I spoke to them.
(16:21):
I remember saying like what amI going to say to you Like, I
can't feel your pain.
And then they asked me to comeback.
It was the year after thecellar was in the terrace.
I came back and.
I said before I was, you know,an observer.
Now I'm a participant, ifyou're going to do what you feel
.
But I said that I don't want tofeel the way you feel.
(16:45):
Some of you are doing this for20 years.
That means you still can't stepout of it, that feeling of
being lost, the feeling ofmourning pain, that you can't
live that way.
You can't live that way and youlook at it in a certain
(17:07):
different perspective, as as soit was here.
Like you know she's.
Like I said, I spent more timea day.
I learned the Shana expertevery day.
I have to time that I wouldcount during a week that I am
putting in my life and I put infor so close.
We know that we put in for theother children together.
(17:28):
Just just know that is I saidthat is so comforting and so
valuable that we do this.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Did any of those women give you feedback on that?
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Yeah, a lot of them do a lot of them.
You know some of them ask, theycall me and you know, sometimes
I have a difficult day orwhatever, and I always try to
make myself available, difficultway or whatever, I always try
to make myself available.
And you know this is an articlethat I wrote that became
probably the most famous articlethat I wrote that you know,
(18:06):
which was called Wine Me.
That was the topic of thearticle.
What happened was that wherethis started from was that my
oldest daughter had a friendthat she was a best friend of
hers in seminary together andspent summers in camp together.
And this woman, she wasdiagnosed with cancer at a young
(18:29):
age and she had small children.
She didn't want her family toknow, so she kept it.
Just, her husband Didn't tellanybody, didn't tell all the
children, didn't tell neighbors,didn't tell other relatives,
and for six years she kept, youknow, quiet.
And then she was waiting.
Her youngest child was justgetting bar mitzvahed and she
waited for the bar mitzvah andthen she had very little time
(18:51):
left and that's when she toldher daughter, who was in Israel,
to come back and to be therefor the family.
And then she, her daughter wasmarried with a child and then
she went in to tell her youngestson her status, her situation.
So what happened was that I as Ionly knew her because she was
(19:14):
my daughter's very closefriend's mother and we met when
the girls were going to Israel.
We met at the airport sendingall of our daughters to seminary
.
We met them on camp visitingday.
We met them in Israel when wewere visiting our daughters.
That interaction was justreally a very brief social
interaction and we heard theterrible news that she'd passed
(19:37):
away.
So my daughter she said thatshe wanted my wife and I to go
and I said we didn't know, Ididn't really know them, but she
really wanted us to go, she wasso close to the family.
So we went.
When I came in there wereseveral rubruns from Flapper
sitting in the room with thehusband and I woke in and he
said you know, you really don'tknow my wife.
I said no, just a little bit, Ididn't really know her.
(19:59):
So he says you know, she's avery, very simple woman, very
simple, okay.
And then he says to me, he saysyou know, you have to do what
I'm ready to know.
And then she said, let's share.
Starts telling the son that youknow I'm sick, I've been sick
for a few years and I only havea few weeks left.
So the son, like right away, asany child would say, young
(20:23):
adult or child would say youknow, like why you, you're such
a special person, why you?
So the mother said thefollowing to her child.
She said you know, when adoctor six years ago gave me a
diagnosis, it was exactly thequestion I had why me?
And I started thinking about itand I said I was the first one
(20:45):
of all my high school classmatesto become a kala.
When I started to divert all myfriends, I was the only one I
didn't say Hashem.
Why me?
And then, when I got married, Iwas the only one I didn't say
Hashem.
Why me?
And then, when I got married, Iwas the first one of my friends
to be under the chuppah.
I didn't ask why me, I was thefirst one in the class to become
a mother.
I didn't ask why me.
(21:06):
Then I was the first in theclass, the first woman in the
class of all my friends, tobecome the walk my daughter down
the chuppah and then the firstone of all my classmates to
become a grandmother.
And I never once during thosetimes asked Hashem, why me?
So now, when I got thisdiagnosis, I said I'm not going
(21:27):
to start asking now, hashem, whyme?
That's a shorter time.
But she said that to her son.
The husband repeated it to meand I said whoa, whoa.
I said this is for Kali's room.
I didn't say a word.
I listened and he said you'renot going to knock me out.
I walked out, I went.
(21:47):
I'm not going to sleep tonight.
I sat down by the computer andI wrote an article called why Me
?
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And the next morning.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I called the daughter , the one that was good friends
with my daughter, and I said Iwrote an article.
Now it's so powerful, thisstatement your mother mentioned,
that I can put it without anyname, but it has so much meaning
(22:14):
if it's the name of a realperson, but your children.
It was a husband.
Her mother had parents stillalive.
I said I don't want anyone tofeel uncomfortable, I'm sending
it to you, I'm emailing it toyou.
I want you to show it to theentire family.
Anybody has any concern, anyfeelings that are uncomfortable,
that I will not put it in?
(22:35):
I spent three or four in.
I sent her Three or four days.
She got back to me.
She says the entire family, mygrandparents, my father, my
siblings, all feel such adisgust for my mother.
This would be Mikhasic people,so please go ahead.
So I sent it in to Mishpaka andI said stop the presses, this
is what you're putting in.
(22:56):
And I put itaka and I said stopthe presses, this is what
you're putting in.
And I put it in.
So I want to tell you what cameout of that article.
First, it was interesting.
It was a few years later.
Mishpaka had their 10th yearanniversary and they put out a
thing.
They put out to all the readers.
What they felt was the mostimpactful article 3,000 readers
responded.
97% of the readers.
What they felt was the mostimpactful article 3,000 readers
(23:17):
responded.
97% of the readers.
97% said it was an Argowinemade.
I think that is the firstarticle.
Now what happened?
What the feedback to me was?
It was about two years, twoyears after the article came out
, I get a email from a lady fromMuncie.
(23:38):
She sends me a thing.
I want to thank you for givingme back my family.
I had no idea what she wastalking about.
She goes can I call you?
She pulls me up, she tells me astory that she had a.
It was only her, it was onlyher, and her sister and her
(23:59):
father died when they were young, and then she had just gotten
married and her mother passedaway.
So her sister was three yearsyounger than her.
So all she had in life was hersister.
Her sister moved in with herand during the dating process
she wrote her sister down.
Then her sister got married andmoved back on the same block as
her and they were together.
(24:20):
The whole family, all they hadwas each other.
Unfortunately, her sister had adaughter and at six years old
got sick and unfortunatelypassed away, and her sister, the
mother of this child, was justinconsolable and she refused to
come out of her house.
For more than a year she did notleave her house.
(24:43):
They tried everything.
They had a very famous Rebbe inher distro.
It was very close to the family.
Came, specially sat with her,didn't help Therapist family.
She wasn't taking care of otherchildren, she just gave up on
life.
And well, this woman who sentme, this other woman, her older
(25:04):
daughter, got married, gotengaged.
I was getting married.
She says you have to.
I have nobody else, no otherrelatives, just you, my only
blood relative.
How can you not be at mywedding?
I can't, I'm not.
Anyway, she was just besideherself and then she was sharing
this with someone and a friendcame over to her and said you
know, listen, read this article.
So she takes the article.
(25:27):
The next morning she goes to hersister's house, she goes into
her sister's sitting chair inthe bedroom, she puts down the
article, the article why Me?
And she said just read it.
I'm not going to say anything,just please read it.
Three hours later, knock on herdoor.
Her sister's by the door.
Sister says come, I need you togo.
(25:48):
I don't have a dress for thewedding.
You've got to come.
Let's go shopping for a dressfor the wedding.
She says my sister.
My daughter got married.
My sister sat next to me.
I dance with her.
She danced with my daughter.
She says thank you for givingme back.
I tell the story only because Ijust don't know what resonates
with people.
Why me?
What?
What?
It was a simple message, notmine.
(26:09):
A message from a mother who wassaying goodbye to her child,
who was looking for a way togive her child, to give her
child, the kizuk, the ability togo through and deal with this
challenge that he was going togo through.
It's a powerful personal thingand other people took from it.
That's one of the things in mybook.
(26:30):
I wrote the book.
There's articles that I feltgave kizuk.
And again, why me?
I heard from all over the world.
People told me somehow itresonated with people.
So when someone loses, it'salways the first thing Hashem,
why?
What do I do different?
Why me?
It's such a one question to ask, because the questions are good
(26:53):
if you have answers.
No one can provide an answerfor it.
So it just, and the question isjust tears down a person.
It's waste of energy, waste ofyour mindset, and you focus on
something that cannot help, willnot help and doesn't just
doesn't help.
So that's never the question toask.
(27:13):
The question is what can I?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
do Hashem.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
What can I do to hold strong?
What can I do to give chizuk tomyself, to my family, to others
and the answer is do somethingspecial, focus on something that
would make a difference, thatwould be a source for that
person and will give youpleasure in doing it Pleasure.
You know a very dear neighborand a friend, almost like family
(27:44):
, of ours.
So they were building a newmikvah in Cedarhurst.
In the five towns- and it was agorgeous, beautiful mikvah and
him and some other people gottogether and this is right after
Sot it was just a few monthsafter Sot was put here and they
dedicated the mikvah to Sot'smemory.
So my wife, you know a lot onher plate, a lot to do, but
(28:09):
she's a volunteer, she goes,she's one of the women that goes
to work at the mikvah once,twice a week and that's because
she feels close to sorrow.
She feels that when a womangoes to the mikvah, she's going
there.
She makes a brothel, her wifeis there.
She feels that it's likeanother source of sorrow.
It gives her such.
Her wife does not want to miss.
(28:30):
It's like we have a wedding.
She calls people to make sureshe can do another night.
It's just important to her andyou know it's, it's, it's just
another it's not even healingit's just, it's a connection.
It's a connection and you know,the connection is so real that I
will tell you that.
You know, obviously, theemotional connection as time
(28:51):
moves on that's that a kush bookof creators that way.
But the deep connection thatwhen you do, when you evolve,
when you do and you think ofways to do, makes an incredible
difference and it's healing andit lets people get through
anything and go through and keepon building and going from
there.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Can I ask you about?
You know, not everyone, mostpeople don't have the
connections or the resources tohave mikvahs and shuls and you
know organizations to be made,you know the children.
So, like there's still so muchto do, that's small and little
and doesn't have to be public,that can still create that
connection and that you knowthat 100%.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
You know that there's parents who are parents that
don't have any means, and thiswas their only child.
They lost their only child.
I think he was 13, just a weekbefore his bat mitzvah, maybe,
and he was sick for severalyears.
But they have no other childrenand you know that can destroy
(29:58):
anybody, you know.
And what do they do?
So they actually took uponthemselves something that's you
know, they saw when they were inthe hospital Other
organizations there's HighLifeline, of course, there's
Biko Olin, there's people who doso much for it, but they just
(30:21):
decided that they're going to dosomething.
The two of them, noorganization.
They don't send out ads, theydon't collect money for it, the
husband and wife themselves.
Every Friday she preparesShabbos Thursday night or early
Friday morning, but they spend agood part of Friday afternoon
(30:42):
going to certain hospitals wherechildren are and just do
something for them for Shabbos Ahome cook something, a little
toy, something that they made,just small things.
But they bring smiles which,again, like I said, they have a
high life and they haveincredible musicians that do
great things, but little littlethings that would almost say
(31:05):
it's insignificant.
But they come home for Shabbosenthused, inspired, uplifted.
And she says that when shelights Shabbos candles and she
lights a candle for her sonafter Shabbos, she still does.
She just feels a sense of joywhen she does it.
There's no money, it doesn'trequire organization, it doesn't
(31:29):
require connections, it's justa little quiet something.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
And the only reason why I know about it is because
they had asked me.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I didn't know that I don't know about this.
They called me because theyheard that there was a family
from Israel here with a sickchild in one of the hospitals.
They usually have a good handlewith a child.
They didn't know where.
They want to know, know if Iwould know where they are and
how they could get in touch.
They wanted to come to thisparticular child.
The French Shore was probablyeven harder for the child that
(32:02):
wanted to come, and so theystarted telling me what they do
and I said incredible.
I said I'd like to write aboutit, absolutely not, can't write
about it.
They don't want me to writeabout it.
You know, I want them to talkabout what people can do.
So you know, I'll mention itwithout, of course, their name.
But they do not want.
They say this is our personalthing.
It's between, I remember thehusband was telling this to
(32:25):
myself, my wife and my son.
So it's finding something to dothat gives you, gives you the
kama, gives you a sense ofpurpose, a sense of feeling, a
good feeling, and it isincredibly therapeutic,
therapeutic.
You know some people.
People need to do whatever theycan.
(32:46):
We didn't go to loss therapy.
We didn't go to and speak toprofessionals.
This is what we found and wewere looking at something.
I was sort of looking him up.
I wrote about it so many times,about it how it just came out
of the blue, this opportunity,and just the idea clicked.
I remember I told my wife thisthing we should keep up with
(33:07):
singles.
They should be able to dump.
But all of a sudden, this phonecall.
My wife's first reaction waswhat does it have to do with a
girl who's just 17?
What does it have to do withher?
And I said so, I'm not the same, I don't know.
Like it just came out of myhead.
I said I don't know if shewasn't self-contained marriage.
She was 17, she, she dreamedthat, she loved her, she was an
(33:33):
incredible aunt, or.
But you can have it.
So it's going to improve thisand result in a couple of good
results.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
You just got lost.
You like faded out.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
What you hear me.
Hello, I got to get something.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah now.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
I think so.
I said that.
You know I should remember mywife's reaction.
It was when I told her thatidea.
She said what does that do witha 17 year old girl, like
couples that aren't children,older single girls and like what
does that do for her?
What does that do?
I said, and I said to her,because if we, she wasn't so
good to have, like a man, haveher own family, but if we could
make, we could do something thata couple will have a baby, that
(34:13):
will be her legacy, that willbe her generations.
And I said, even if we do oneor two, let's try it.
We do one or two.
That was about seven and a halfyears ago.
We're at about 7,000 engagementmarriages and about 1,700,
1,800 babies born that we knowof.
And almost every day there'sanother engagement, another baby
(34:36):
, another couple that's nowpregnant from this old soul.
I mean it just.
You know, when I said it, Isaid and I said this at the last
service, last yurt site.
We had some people there, therewas a small group at the
cemetery and I said it's allright.
I said Shemayim, you have hadmore descendants.
You have more descendants thanpeople who lived 150 years.
(35:00):
You have thousands, baruch,hashem, of children being born
from this that came from it's.
It's incredibly wonderfulfeeling to know that, that that
we're able to do this for them,and again, it was just an idea,
it came it, and that we're ableto do this for them.
And again, it was just an idea,it came, it didn't require, it
wasn't, but you know.
So again, you don't have tohave a plan.
There's something small,something, as an example I just
(35:21):
gave, it makes such a world ofdifference.
And then it's what, as Istarted with what the Yemayem
has said to that board, it'sonly lay mayhem, it's only I
don't see them, but they're here.
My entire family is here, I seethem all here.
You just can't see them, butthey're here.
That is an incredible way to gothrough life, uplifting way to
(35:42):
go through life.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
And how do you keep her alive for all your
grandchildren and everythingthat they should know?
Her not just as an organizationbut as a real person?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Well, I'll tell you.
You know, this really is acredit to my children we have.
You know, our name is Sahola,so it's Baruch Hashem.
I mean, we never, ever, had toask our other children.
You know, when you have a child, they don't have a name.
(36:15):
We never had to ask our otherchildren.
You know, when you have a childthey don't have a name.
They would never have to ask.
It was the.
I have three married daughtersand two married sons.
All of them have a cellar.
Every one of them.
They had another name, ofcourse, because she died young.
(36:35):
They all have a cellar.
Every one of them.
They had another name, ofcourse, because she died young.
They all have a cellar.
One of my children, you know,can't call her a cellar, it's
too hard for him to do that, sohe calls her Sari, but the name
is we'll have the name of acellar One of my daughters who
lives in.
My third daughter, jackson, justhad a baby just two weeks ago.
So she, she named her, um.
(36:57):
Her second daughter, sarah,because of my, my son was
grandmother, so, uh, we um, sowhat she did was just this new
baby.
She named her.
Uh, Sarah's name had two names.
Sarah's name was Sarah Kaya.
So my other kids gave the nameSarah Kaya.
(37:18):
Plus they added another name.
So she named a different nameof a different grandmother and
used the name Kaya.
So look, this way, she hassomething for Sarah.
So all my children have youknow, and that is you know, it's
.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
She never had an added-on name before she was
left there.
Sorry, starla, never.
Had you never added a name ontoher?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
No, never added no, you know it was.
It was never did.
The truth is that I never did.
But when she was born, you knowwe had different names than
mine.
But when she was born, thisproblem that she had was right
away she was in the NICU.
So I was trying to think whatto do, what to name her.
(38:02):
So what I did was the parasha.
She was born the week betweenChai, sarah and Tolos between
that week.
So I named her Sarah, chayaSarah was Sarah, and Nainu and
Chaya that she should be able tohave a long life.
(38:23):
So Chaya was really a name thatwas given for that.
We never had a name.
It was, you know, that wasn'tso quickly in the last few
months, things went down but wedidn't actually do that.
But so everybody, like I said,so all the children, naming is
very important.
It's important when you knowwhen it's so on the yard site.
(38:45):
So we, you know, originally Iworked the first year at the
yard site to bring all mychildren to come to the camper,
but well, the appearance ofsmall children is not easy to
pick up and go there to stroll.
But it's not a sad day for me.
It's like they do something forSarah.
(39:06):
One of my daughters has Sarah'sbirthday.
She buys kids special breakfast.
They have a special in honor ofSarah's birthday.
So it's a joyous, it's like ajoyous thing to remember that
you know and you know, so youknow.
That's the idea, you know Imean.
Some of them, of course,remember her.
The ones that were older,grandchildren, still remember
(39:29):
her and have very fond memoriesof her.
But the other ones, the youngerones who didn't know her
remember, or the ones who boughtafterwards, it's she existed
and she's there and she'ssomething now.
But it's not a sad occasion,it's a joyous occasion.
We do what we have to do, butit's remembering in a positive
(39:54):
way.
That's what it is, it's not sad, it's positive.
Like I said, it's a kashpa whoyou know.
They decided you know.
It's interesting to say onething that after Settlers of
Terrorists.
So we went, I went to a showwith my wife and we made the
(40:19):
rounds.
I went very close to the man inthe gedolim and we went to
everybody the Seder, the Svartik, the Gedolim.
We saw everybody.
I was both going to say thatyou know, some said things that
were helpful, some didn't, someweren't able to.
But I remember that at thattime I used to say I dab in the
(40:43):
notes of the kosel, so I used toIdavenate, to the Coastal, so
me and Idavenate.
So Ramesh Shapiro was there,ramesh Shapiro's home of Raka.
So one of the people there veryclose to him was in the store
and he says why don't you go toRamesh Shapiro?
So I said you know what?
I really don't know him and Iknow that he's not a talker, he
(41:06):
he's not a person that gave alot of cheer, but he wasn't a
one-on-one and so I didn't talkto him.
It was, I think, two yearslater.
Two years later, mishka wasnifter passed away and I started
reading things about him and Iwas flabbergasted Because when I
started reading about his life.
He writes there that I knewthat he had come to America and
(41:27):
spent a few years in America.
I didn't know why.
I just knew he came here forthe opening of Yeshiva.
I knew that he opened upStanford Yeshiva.
He was a Yeshiva there.
Then he went back there toIsrael.
What I didn't know was he camehere because his daughter Sheva
her name was Sheva was very sickand he came with special
(41:48):
treatments and small cateringfor her and he spent a few years
here in treatments andunfortunately she passed away.
She was in for terrorists andhe went back while he was here
and then he went back and then,once he went back when she
passed away, he stayed there andwhen I saw that, I said I had
(42:08):
an opportunity to talk to himand I felt like I didn't have a
relationship and what's thepoint?
He was the one man I could haveunderstood.
He always spoke about it and hesaid something so incredible at
the funeral that I had seenwritten up and I spoke to people
two people who were there withhim.
(42:28):
She had an incredible thingthat he said At the Leviah.
He said that I have a question.
I have a question on HaKadoshBaruch Hu.
The question on HaKadosh BaruchHu is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu
violated his own Torah.
The question about the KodeshBaruch Hu is that the Kodesh
Baruch Hu violated his own Torah.
The Torah says we know thatthere are three partners to a
(42:50):
person that's born mother,father and Hashem.
And there's a halach inShechanarach, in Koshem Mishpat,
that if two people are partners, one partner cannot do
something take, take what theythink that they're a partner and
and sell it, do something withit without checking with the
(43:10):
other partner.
You have no right to do it onyour own.
You have to ask the otherpartner.
So the question is how didHashem decide to take my
daughter with my wife and otherpartners?
You can't take what I ask.
You never asked us.
How could you do that?
You violated your own Torah.
What an incredible powerfulquestion.
And he said the answer isbecause there is a shita that
(43:35):
says an opinion that ifsomething is so valuable for
that partnership, that isnon-question, it's like an
annunciated for sure.
You would agree.
You don't have to askpermission.
For example, you have something.
You have a piece of jewelrythat's worth $1,000, we're both
(43:55):
partners in it, and someoneoffers you $10,000 for that.
You don't have to call up yourpartner because you know he's
going to jump.
What are you calling me for?
Just sell it.
He says obviously Hashem didnot have to ask us his other
partners because what he did formy daughter's neshama was so
valuable for her, so important.
(44:18):
We don't understand that, butif we did, we would all 100%
agree to what Akash Berku did.
So, akash Berku, we understand.
We don't understand, but weunderstand, we agree, we agree.
That's what he said.
At the airport, on the way goingback to Dubai, I saw this.
(44:41):
It was such a good and Iactually wrote it up in an
article afterwards for peoplewho didn't know, didn't know
about it.
Gave chizuk to so many people.
Some people called me about itafterwards, but I said I could
have gone over to him at thecoast and said can we talk to
you?
He would have spent hours withus because we were insane.
I just asked him.
I Hashem, I did not.
They know this bad about him.
(45:02):
Hashem, for some reason, didn'twant me to talk to him and I
didn't.
But this thing gave us someposts Afterwards, gave us some
incredible things, some powerful, powerful things.
And it's interesting, the lastaddress that he gave he spoke at
Harnov and one of his students,who was a student for many,
(45:24):
many, many years, had lost achild.
They were making a seum I thinkit was a Yotzeit seum, end of
year or end of years for thatchild, and they asked him to
come and he spoke.
He was very, very, very sickand he spoke and he spoke about
his daughter.
Like he spoke about hisdaughter as if it happened the
day before.
So, while he may have been aman who traveled the world
(45:46):
Russia and America and Europe,giving shum all over the world
on the most incredibly difficulttopics, but his daughter was
front and center of his mind, inhis heart, his neshama.
that was the last thing he spokeabout, his last public address,
so that was an incredible thing.
He spoke about his last publicaddress, so that was an
incredible thing, but anincredible message as well to
(46:08):
find something he gave Gizik,and he gave Gizik after he was
no longer here.
I got Gizik from it, and I knowmany, many other people who
heard it from me, who read whatI wrote, got Gizik from it as
well.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
My brother died at the age of 14 from leukemia and
it was like after he was niftermy father went on such a journey
to be okay with it.
He was my only brother, he wasthe youngest.
There's like a lot of thingsthat you know added the pain to
the pain.
And it's just funny because I'mtalking about it, because I was
just talking to to someoneabout it, and he wrote a whole
(46:44):
like journal.
He wrote a whole journal tohelp him through it and when I
was reading it, my, my instinctwas like so much of this stuff
is almost like what girls learnin high school, like a lot of
the things like I learned myfashion or whatever.
Like it sounds like so simple,basic, whatever.
But I know that my father likereally really lived it and my
boss, abay Haken, abay MosheHaken, read through it recently
(47:05):
and he was like blown away by it.
He's like, oh my gosh, yourfather.
Like you see how he made it soreal and so much part of his
life and he lived my father foranother 11 years and then he was
nifted like very suddenly heactually died.
At my cousin's wedding hedanced with my grandfather like
the hassan's father.
You know the, his father, thehassan's grandfather, and he was
(47:26):
walking away.
My brother-in-law said itlooked like he was jostled by
people and he was falling, buthe just had a heart attack and
like died and it was like I mean, it's very painful, but like I
was telling people it's like yousee the growth, like he just
like climbed, you know, on theladder from one step to the next
and he reached the, the top,like Hashem just took him, like
there was, like nothing more, sowhatever, like I guess I don't
know when you're talking andeverything it's like, reminds me
(47:50):
of that.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Shmuel, a friend of mine, told me once a dear friend
of mine, he was very close toShmuel Birnbaum, the Shiva of
Mir Shivas.
For most of his life he losttwo sons.
He lost two sons One, very sick, passed away from cancer.
(48:11):
Another one was killed in anaccident.
He was in a destroyer.
He was hiking, touring whatever, in a Russian guard, whatever.
Whatever exactly happened, noone knows for sure, but he was
killed.
So he suffered a lot.
So one day Rafa would takedifferent opportunities to drive
(48:37):
him.
He had a chance to talk to him,so his brother was driving him.
One time, when they got to theplace they were going to, shmuel
turned to him and says Tell me.
He says, do you believe inHashem?
What?
What kind of question?
Of course I believe in Hashem.
What kind of question is that?
He says Well, what did you gothrough in life to know if you
(49:00):
really believe in Hashem?
Tell me, what did you go, whatdifficulty did you go through
that could show that you reallybelieve in Hashem?
It's a very powerful, powerfulstatement.
I also wrote that in an articleone time.
You know we believe in Hashem.
We learn, like I said, you gothrough everything.
In high school, you learneverything.
We learned all the Pashya, welearned Shkafa we.
(49:22):
We learned, we learned we couldsay it by heart.
We know everything.
But until you go through it,until you're faced with a
challenge that will show how areal life.
If you're angry at Hashem, ifyou can't go on with life, if
you struggle for getting throughthe day, then you don't really
(49:43):
believe in Hashem.
Because if you struggle forgetting through the day, then
you don't really believe inHashem.
Because if you did, you know,it's like that's going to tell
you the world.
You know it.
Just, it's not a day.
The news goes on, that justshow all over the world and you
know, we hope Trump will do this, we hope Trump will do that.
What about this?
He should have done this, heshould have done this or that.
(50:07):
Hashem runs this world.
You believe it.
So how do you get sosidetracked and think that it's
up to individuals to makedecisions on what's going to
affect Christ or the world?
It's Nesianos, but it's part ofthe channel.
If you believe in Hashem, youbelieve it.
It's real, it's real.
Say I know it's from you, Iaccept it.
It real, it's real, I know it'sfrom you.
Next up, it doesn't mean thatit's easy doesn't mean it's.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
You know, sometimes it might have to just be lip
service till you really feel it.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah, great people could be of its kind to get up
at his, at the Leviah of his son, and say his beloved son, and
say that I had so much love formy son.
Now, I take that part that thatI had so much love for my son,
and now, hashem, I take thatpart that I loved him, that part
of my Neshama that I loved him,and I save it now for you, I
give it over to you.
How is God going to say that?
(50:53):
Most of us can't say somethinglike that.
But you know what?
What we can say is that,shabbat, we believe you, we
believe in you, we're connectedenough, we accept what happened.
We know that it's for somereason, like the G-d said you
didn't ask me, but we know it'sfor the betterment of both my
(51:16):
G-d and myself.
One day we'll find out the G-dof G-d and we needed.
Day we'll find out the god ofthe country that they're going
to show up for this generation.
That needed a tico and that wasridiculous and we needed to go
through this challenge.
So we should become strongerand do things.
But we know who knows thosethings, that we're able to do it
(51:36):
.
You know it's because of thethings that's replaced to do
things.
You know it's.
You know Rav called me up afterthe terrible tragedy in Miron.
Terrible, terrible tragedy.
It's coming up on the outsidejust this week.
(51:58):
So you know, I got a call fromthe editors of the spot, said
like the whole class waswheeling, I suppose I was
stopping, not printing.
We just don't know.
Do we need to write?
We need to do something.
I said who can write?
We were all stunned and justshocked and beyond.
They said we just need you gotto do something.
And I stayed up all night and Isat down and I just wondered,
(52:23):
no, second, no, no.
Then all of a sudden it justlike opened because Roku helped
me and it just put out and itjust sent it in and they, it
just said this this is thepublisher pulled me up.
He says you don't know, I tookit home to my family to discuss
it because you know, I know Ishepherd the words in my mouth.
But a love from one of the mostprominent of my brother,
(52:47):
wilhelm Kleisler, pulled me upand says I couldn't, I had no
words, I didn't know how todiscuss it.
How do you find the words forthis?
Speaker 1 (52:57):
I said you know what?
Speaker 3 (52:59):
I said when you, when you're trained, when you need
to find the words for yourself,give yourself a khama and your
family a khama.
There's a place deep down youcan go to and from there you can
draw.
And I said I never would havebeen able to do it if I didn't
have the ability to draw out.
You know, dealing with our ownfamily situation, our own pain,
(53:24):
and that's where it comes from.
It comes from a place there andI told my Mary Sifton I wish I
could do this.
I don't know.
I hope that you would neverhave that need to be able to
have to dig down deeply to lookfor that, to be able to find the
right words.
But that's where it comes from.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Okay, so I know we have to end, but before we end,
should we just talk about yourbook and, like the most popular
article from your book, what'sthe name of it?
Speaker 3 (53:49):
again, it's called Race of Hope.
It was published by Arts Girl.
It came out in September ofthis year.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
And what really it was, is that in over the years.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
I thought it was a piece of the different personal
situations and what really wasis that in over the years the
guy write articles of differentsituations, personal situations
or things in Israel that takeplace, and that's what resonated
with people and it reallystarted with Mayer.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Zadai was a home abruptly.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
He used to put me up.
If you read something I wrotein the Jewish services, I want
you gotta put it.
You gotta write a book.
You gotta put this in a book.
I said I don't like books, Iwrite articles.
If there's something thattouches me, I write.
I'm not interested and I didn'tknow.
He asked me a few times.
He didn't see me and then,before she passed away, his son
took me to Dahlia and Dahliaasked me a few times.
(54:58):
I think it was really when I gotthat letter from that person
about the why Me article.
That lady wrote me aboutrestoring her family.
I said you and we workedtogether with her and thank you
and I thank Hashem.
You know, which is justliterally, if you ask me.
This was last night.
Last night I got a call fromsomeone in Barak, a Rockaway,
(55:25):
who left Israel.
This morning he has been in afew of his services.
You know I have a number ofpeople I know that show up, gone
through so much.
The New York Cousin that losttheir son, another one who lost
a young wife, cast a greatpromise.
I want to do something.
(55:45):
I'm reading your books there.
I look in.
It says I just read 10 books togive out to these people.
I know they're going to getbusy, so it's that's what it's
for.
That's what we live for.
We live for to try to help wecan, and so that's what the
purpose of the book is andthat's what I hope that it's
accomplished.
People read it, find what theyneed in there that will help
(56:08):
them get through a difficulttime.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Okay, thank you so so much for coming on.
I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
Pleasure.
Thank you for what you do.
Positive lifestyle, goodphysical people.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
That's what we live for.
Speaker 3 (56:23):
We live for to try to help Jews, help you.
That's what the Afghan religionwrites, that our role in life,
our job in this world, is tolift up other people.
It's your most credit to me.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
You've just listened to an episode of the Relief from
Grief podcast with MiriamRiviet, brought to you by Mayrim
.
For more episodes, visit theMayrim website at wwwmayrimorg.
Help us reach more people whomight benefit from this podcast.
If you know someone who couldfind it helpful, please share it
with them.
If you have questions orcomments for the speaker, or if
(57:13):
you'd like to suggest a guestfor the podcast, we'd love to
hear from you.
Email us atrelieffromgriefatmayrimorg.
We look forward to having youjoin us in the next episode.
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