Dearest Naftoli Meir Z’’L,
Three years have passed since your pure neshomo left this world. Yet in a moment I am back next to you in hospital holding your hand and thinking of the precious time Hashem gave us with you. Looking at the messages you sent me three years ago from your hospital bed I cannot help but wonder how you were capable of so much love and concern for others when you were in pain and trying to make sense how your life was flipped upside down by your sudden illness.
The messages of thanks and love you shared with mummy and I for staying with you for Shabbos are the sweetest most touching words. On one occasion you wrote “I cannot thank you enough for spending Shabbos with me.” In a follow up message, you were very insistent that I “treat myself” on motzei Shabbos at home and have a large l’chaim. It was so hard being away from you and not knowing for 25 hours how you were feeling. I missed our walk to shul and having you by my side in davening. The Shabbos table was empty without you (as it is today three years later).
Others in shul missed your beautiful smile as you walked in and took your place next to me. But know that mummy and I gladly took turns to stay with you, even though being in a hospital environment is a long way from where our Shabbos was. We tried together to make the space shabbosdik. Covering your bedside table in a plastic white apron and preparing the challos and grape juice from the amazing Shabbos room. We davened and sung zemiros quietly so as not to disturb the other children and their families. We pretended we were eating normal Shabbos food as we blended crisps with challah and then more challah.
We are taught that being a Jew, a Yehudi is about gratitude as in the precious words of Leah after giving birth to Yehuda “now I will thank Hashem.” We can listen to shiurim read biographies of gedolim and holy women, but day to day it’s not that easy to live with the middo of hakaros hatov. Appreciating help reminds us that we cannot do things all on our own. Our self-esteem plummets, we feel less accomplished and potentially quite broken. It’s true that receiving help can mean that you have a healthy network of friends and family but it can also lead to feeling like a nebech. These complicated divergent reactions towards receiving help are noticeable in our day to day interactions. You, my darling son {z’’l} had every right to feel low and nebeched. Your life had taken a most unexpected turn. You were back home for just a few hours after hatzolo drove you to hospital on Shabbos parashas Ki Tzeitzei. You literally left and then on the week of parashas Lech Lecha went on your final journey. During that time, you continued to appreciate everything we did for your and the help you received from the staff in the hospital. I don’t know how you achieved that madreigo, always thanking and worrying about others. Your final remarkable act of chessed was to worry about the boy next to you on the ward when you needed an x-ray and he had to leave the room for a few moments.
The Biala Rebbe writes “When a person truly longs for the well being of others, this shows that his ahavas Yisroel is sincere.” When you went up to shomayim and were asked if you longed for redemption, I know that you could have said yes. After all, you lived the teaching of the Rebbe here. “This question does not refer to longing for the resolution of our personal problems, since every person obviously longs for his personal problems to be resolved. Rather it means that we must long for the redemption of klal Yisroel and for the resolution of the problems of all Jews.”
When the nursing staff came to our home during Shiva they echoed everything I am saying here. It’s not usual for a senior consultant, nurses and occupational therapy staff to visit families at home. But you resonated loving kindness and gratitude on a level that we who are left in this complicated world can only try with Hashem’s help to emulate. Your example left such a deep impression, they wanted to give back to your family. Let me share with you a teaching from the Rebbe Yisrael of Ruzhin. “A person must not be selfish in any sense. Otherwise, he might think that he is pious and holy, but he is really just doing what he enjoys, for his own self interests.” Thank you for teaching us this lesson during those dark days and remaining a source of inspiration for those who knew you.
In a subsequent text, you wanted to feel normal and made a request of me. Before sharing what you asked for, permit me to digress. Normal is so very subjective, we all think that our own way of doing things is normal and that everyone else is slightly not normal. Some people over compensate by becoming dull uninspired copies of each other, they somehow manage to obliterate any individuality in a attempt to fit in; to be judged normal by some mysterious hidden group of judges that create the inn club and those on the outside. You know that this contradicts the Chazal that says that the genius of Hashem is creating difference in humans, each of us with our own personality, face and way to connect deeply with Hashem.
We don’t need to become invisible lemmings we need to be our own normal selves. So, what did you ask for on that erev Sukkos three years ago? You wrote, “just to make me feel a bit normal. Send me some of the tunes for Sukkos.” How I yearn and long for the years we sat together in our simple Sukkah singing together. Boruch Hashem our street is so special and as one neighbour begins a niggun the sound carries and soon we were joining in or starting our own niggun. It pained you not to be in the Sukkah with the family. You were connected to so many lines that even taking Arba Minim was a challenge. Normal for you was authenticity, was doing the will of Hashem, not because it gave you elevated social status but because that was you. You wanted what was right to want, you yearned for the connection that only a life of mitzvos can bring.
Let me leave you with one final beautiful teaching from the Biala Rebbe in Mevaser Tov. “Every Jew is unique in his own field of greatness and in his special tikkun he performs in the world. He alone was entrusted with the personality situation and skills which enabled him to make an irreplaceable contribution to the world, which no one else from the beginning of creation until the end could do. Only by appreciating the contribution of very Jew can we learn to love them as we should.” It’s a challenge living without you, there is a huge gap in our hearts. I no longer have the zechus to daven next to you.
But maybe we can daven together for a world where we can learn to give to others and be truly appreciative of what we have and for a world of normal, where every person can just be themselves. Let us yearn for the Beis Hamikdish where despite the crowds space opened up for each person, showing us that unconditional love breaks down the barriers that push people away or barriers that tell people you’re not wanted. Omein ken yehi ratzon!
Love Abba
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