Essay About Shoshana One of the richest women in the country went to a matchmaker to find a husband for her daughter. The matchmaker told the mother "I have the perfect young man for your daughter. He is a G-d fearing young man, a real mensch, and a great father." "Does he know how to learn?" the mother asked. "Not a single halacha (law). Not a single Mishna." What kind of family does he come from? "His father is a convert." Does he have money? "Not a penny" How do you know he would be a great father? "He has children from a previous marriage." "This is the perfect shiduch?" said the mother. "I'm glad you agree!" replied the matchmaker. Although the matchmaker and the mother in this story are fictitious, the boy and the girl are not. They actually got married. Over 1,500 years ago, Rachel, the daughter of one of the richest men in Jerusalem, told Akiva, an unlearned shepherd that she would marry him if he committed to learn Torah. Why did Rachel insist on marrying Rabbi Akiva? Couldn't the richest girl in Jerusalem find a Torah scholar with outstanding character traits to marry rather than an unlearned shepherd? To understand the answer you have to understand Rabbi Akiva. The Talmud brings many stories where a group a Rabbis are crying about a tragedy, and Rabbi Akiva is laughing. In each of these stories we see, that the other Rabbis are crying about the present while Rabbi Akiva is laughing about the good that will come from this tragedy in the future. Rabbi Akiva believes all that G-d does is for the good. He sees the hidden potential. If we do not see the good now, we will see it in the future, we may see the good in this world or we may only see it in the next world. In these dark times that we find ourselves in today, we can look to Rabbi Avika for light. He can teach us how to cope with tragedy. There are many parallels between the lessons we learn from Rabbi Akiva and lessons we learn from my wife, Shoshana. One of Rabbi Akiva's rabbis was Nachum Ish Gam Zu. Nachum Ish Gam Zu was a paraplegic who suffered greatly. He taught his students that: "everything that G-d does is for the good." Shoshana had a role model who overcame many bouts against cancer. This woman taught Shoshana an expression that she used to comfort students in time of tragedy. Shoshana often told her students that "there is good in every bad." Rachel married Rabbi Akiva because she realized that she was the only person who saw his hidden potential. She realized that she was the only one who could help him to reach his potential. Rabbi Akiva became a Torah leader of the Jewish people who changed the world. Had it not been for Rachel's constant support and confidence in him, he would have remained an ignorant shepherd. One of the greatest lessons we learn from Rabbi Akiva is the power that one woman can have to change the world. And the profound impact that we can have on others. We learn this lesson from his wife Rachel. May we focus on the good in every person and inspire them to greater heights. This was Shoshana's goal in life. May we all follow in her footsteps. Shoshana's goal in life was to reach out to each and every soul she touched with her love; to give each one self esteem; to comfort each one in their sadness; and to raise each one to their highest potential. Her life was dedicated to truth and kindness. She inspired men and women of all religions with her ways. She was the perfect role model for the Jewish women she taught. For those of you who have not yet met a role model like Shoshana, know that they do exist. If you keep on looking you will find one. And with G-d's help you will strive to be a role model yourself. Shoshana dedicated her life to elevating each and every one of the hundreds of girls she taught to become just like she was. In the process she also inspired their parents and all the others she met wherever she went. This is a letter that one young woman wrote to my wife to express her gratitude for finding a role model in her. My learning started with a great teacher and it is finishing eighth grade with that same great teacher. The minute I walked in to second grade I knew it would be a great year. Your enthusiasm made me want to learn as much as you wanted to teach. Every day you came in to class as though it was your first day meting us – your kavanah (intention, direction?) never changed. Your excitement never failed us, and your ability to make learning fun never grew weak. You always had a way of making people feel good. You never forgot our names when we left your classroom that year. You always said hello to us in the halls, and you remembered us. It is always nice to be remembered. Now, six years later you are still the same person I saw the first day I walked into second grade. Your smile still lights up the room when you walk in, and your ability to make learning fun didn’t get a bit rusty. I want to thank you for always being open to help us. If we ever had a question or a problem you always made it seem so simple and easy to fix. Your comforting hands were always open to give a hug, and your Morah Hayman look was always there to tell us that everything was going to be okay. Some teachers teach you for a year and then after that year you forget them, and what they taught you. Some teachers have such a great impact on you that you remember them forever. Morah Hayman, you are one of those teachers that I will always remember. You left an impression in my heart, in my mind, and in my memory. Such an impression can never be erased. The feeling that I have inside of me right now cannot be described. The water that is flowing up from my heart and coming out of my eyes is endless. This water that people call tears may dry up, but it will always be within me. Thank you for being my teacher, my friend, and my parent. Shoshana had a profound impact on thousands of people. Hundreds of little children and their parents are crying uncontrollably for her loss. A father once came in tears to a great Rabbi and told him: "Rabbi my son is getting married to a non-Jewish woman. What can I do?" The Rabbi answered the man with the following story: There was a town in Poland that was very close to the Russian border. Several people that lived in the town were smugglers. Whenever they had goods to smuggle over the border, they placed the contraband in a casket and pretended they were escorting a body to the town's cemetery which was located on the other side of the border. One day they were stopped by a border guard. He demanded that they open the casket. The smugglers cried like babies. "How did you know we were not going to a funeral?" they asked the guard. "When mourners accompany their beloved to a funeral their faces are filled with anguish and tears," he answered. Your faces were filled with joy." The Rabbi looked at the grief-stricken father and said: "You have to cry at the right time. Now is not the right time to cry about your son. You should have cried when he was a child. If you had given him the proper Jewish education you would not be crying now." Our rabbis teach us that since the destruction of our holy temple in Jerusalem, all the gates of prayer were closed except one. And that gate is the gate of tears. No matter how bad our future looks, there is always hope. G-d will always listen to our tears. If we cry during our prayers, those prayers will be answered. Prayer is the right time to cry. With all the tragedy that is befalling the Jewish people, we all need to cry. But let us cry at the right time. Let us cry during prayer, so that all our prayers will be answered. And then our tears will turn to joy. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish people were exiled because of needless hatred. The future redemption of the Jewish people will come from needless love. My friend Yankie was waiting for me outside our shul on the night before Rosh Hashana. "Shmuel" he said, "I want you to meet a friend of mine from the community I used to live in; he lives in Israel now; I think you can help him." I asked Yankie's friend in my broken Hebrew, why he was in the United States. He told me that his son was having an operation at the Hospital for Joint Diseases. It was one of my last opportunities of the year to give tzedaka, so I reached into my pocket and handed him a generous donation. As I started to leave, Yankie stopped me and said "that's not the reason I asked you to help him; you used to be a Big Brother and you know about these things." I asked Yankie's friend if there was something else that I could help him with. He told me that he had a divorced daughter that left Judaism. She left Israel and was living with her two children in Monsey. He wanted to know who could help him. I had lived in Monsey for close to eight years. I knew someone who worked with boys who were drifting away from Judaism. Maybe he would know someone who could help. Then it hit me; I realized that I knew the solution to his problem. I explained to the man that a family that I was close to had six children. Two of their children had left Judaism. The parents knew that the only way to bring their children back, was to show them that no matter what the children did they would always love them and welcome them in their home. And the parents loved their children and welcomed them into their home and both of the children came back to Judaism. "That is what you have to do!" I told him with excitement. "If you always show your daughter that you love her and that she is always welcome to come home, then she will come back!" He looked at me with sadness in his eyes and told me "I can’t do that…. She's a bad influence to the other children." I looked at Yankie’s clean-shaven cheeks. There were no tears on his face but I could see that his heart could not stop crying. Yankies heart cried for his friend and his heart cried for his friend's daughter. Yankie knew what it was like to be without a home. How happy Yankie would be if one day his father would welcome him home. And maybe then, Yankie would grow his beard again and wear his strimel proudly as he used to. Everything in our lives is a story; and in every story is a lesson. So what is the lesson from this story? Our relationship with G-d is very much like a relationship between a child and their parent. When we really love G-d, we can communicate with him. We can talk to him with our tears and he speaks to us by opening our eyes to see the stories and teaching us their lessons. We learn from Yankie's friend that when we pray to G-d we have to say: "Tatty I know that you love the Jewish people. I know that we do many things that you told us not to do. But please show us that you love us… show us that you will welcome us in your house no matter how bad we are. Please Tatty.. don’t be like the Tatty who says 'you can’t come home because you're a bad influence.' Please Tatty … show us that you love us… show us that you want us to be close to you in the Land of Israel. Show us that you want us to be close to you in your holy city of Jerusalem. Totty, please protect us and welcome us. We really want to come home." Sometimes we see how much G-d loves us when he rewards us for our kindness. I saw this during my trip to Israel, a few weeks after Shoshana’s funeral. I went with Shoshana’s parents to visit an elderly Rabbi, who Shoshana's parents knew from Los Angeles. He told us a story about what happened to his granddaughter on the day that Shoshana was killed. He said that someone in his family drives him to a friend every morning; he studies with his friend for a few hours; then someone else brings him home later. His granddaughter often drove him home. On the day of the bombing, his granddaughter made a 1:00 appointment with her sister to buy shoes at a shoe store next door to Sbarro. They decided that they would go for lunch afterwards at the restaurant next door. He called his granddaughter that morning and told her that he would like her to pick him up. She called her sister to cancel their appointment. At 2:00 that afternoon she was doing the mitzvah of honoring her grandfather that she loved to do so much, while Shoshana was buying a pizza. (Please don't misunderstand me, Shoshana also honored her parents and grandparents. She spoke with her parents on the phone almost every single day and she always went to visit her grandparents at just about the time the bombing took place, 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon. In fact, out of the six weeks she was in Israel this was the only Thursday that she could not go to visit them, because she had a class the next day.) When I was a child, sometimes my parents would tell me to do things that I did not want to do. Some things were uncomfortable; some things were painful. When I got older, I understood why they told me to do certain things, but other things, I never understood. But my parents brought me into this world, they love me, and they always want the best for me. Sometimes I understand; sometimes I don't. So it is with God…. Sometimes I understand; sometimes I don't. We see the importance of honoring parents from the word of Rabbi Meir Stern, the Rosh Yeshiva (principal) of the Yeshiva Gedolah of Passaic. Rabbi Stern constantly stresses to his students the importance of HaKares HaTov (recognition of the good – gratitude). He quotes the Sefer HaChinuch when he says that it is impossible for a person to believe in G-d if he is not grateful to people for the kindness that they do for him. He goes even further to say it is impossible to believe in G-d if a person does not have HaKares HaTov to his parents. If a person is not thankful to his parents who he sees doing good for him all the time. How can he possibly be thankful to G-d whose kindness is more difficult to see. Without thankfulness to G-d there is no belief in G-d. Shoshana teaches us that our sensitivity and caring for others must extend much further than to merely our relatives. Shoshana was sensitive to the girls who lost parents or had other challenges at home. She would go out of her way never to say anything which could make them feel uncomfortable. She would always try to give them strength and comfort them. She engrained her strength in them and made them truly believe that, as she used to tell them "there is good in every bad." What is the secret to seeing the good? The secret is believing in G-d, believing in yourself and having a positive attitude. Here’s a story to illustrate the point. Shoshana came to Israel on a six-week all-expense-paid program, which she thought, would make her the perfect teacher. When I asked my two bosses for permission to take a six-week vacation, one boss said I could take six weeks; the other boss said I could take four. (Perhaps if they had both agreed to let me go for six weeks, someone else would be speaking today, and I would be in Heaven with Shoshana now.) I arrived in Israel the week after Shoshana arrived and departed a week before she was to depart. When I arrived in Israel, I looked on the window ledge outside our dormitory apartment and I saw a big bucket sitting on its side. In the bucket were a few long thin twigs and some bird feathers. It looked like a birds nest. Shoshana stopped me one day and said. "Shmuel… Shmuel… there's a bird on the ledge. I think it's dying… It looks sick… What can we do to help it?" I said "Shoshana… that's a birds nest. The bird on the ledge is the mother. She is waiting to lay her eggs. " Shoshana said "No… it's not a mother bird. It's the wrong season. It's the summer. Birds only lay eggs in the spring." "Shoshana…" I said. "Believe me, it's a birds nest and that's the mommy bird waiting for the right time to deliver her eggs." A few days later, Shoshana came over to me and said. "Shmuel you are right… the mommy bird was sitting in the bucket. When she got up I saw that she was sitting on two little eggs." Early every morning we watched the mommy bird and tatty bird switch places on top of their precious little treasure. We took picture of the mommy bird and the tatty bird and the eggs. Each day we watched, and waited, and hoped that the eggs would hatch. On my last night in Israel, I asked Shoshana to tell me when the eggs hatch and to take a picture of the babies. One day while I was on the phone with Shoshana, I asked her what happened with the eggs. She said "Shmuel… one of the eggs hatched… there was a baby bird… it looked so ugly." "Shoshana…" I said "it may look ugly now… we may not see the future… but we will see the future… and it will be beautiful." The birds were doves. The dove in Jewish thought is symbolic for the Jewish people. The dove is faithful to her mate for her entire life. No matter how bad things may seem, the Jewish people are always faithful to G-d. We have spoken today about what we can do to make ourselves better: about role models and prayers and tears and communicating with G-d. We spoke about honoring relatives and considering other people's feelings. One of Shoshana's greatest pleasures was in bringing Jews closer to G-d. What can we do for our friends and relatives that are so far away from G-d? Let us look for an answer from Rabbi Dessler. We are taught that the reward for a Baal Tshuva (one who returns to a religious life) is greater than a Tzadik Gamur (one who is completely righteous all of his life). Rabbi Dessler explains this phenomenon using a story. I add a little unto his story. When a flood engulfs a house, if a healthy person is in the basement, he walks up the stairs to safety; if the person is elderly, he struggles up the stairs; if a baby is in the basement, the baby can hardly move. What can he do to save himself? He cries. A parent hears the baby crying and runs to save the baby. The healthy person is the Tzadik Gamur (one who is completely righteous all of his life). He runs up the stairs without any difficulty, without any support. The normal person is like the elderly person in the story; his struggle up the stairs is like the spiritual struggle he has his whole life; sometimes he goes ahead and sometimes he falls back. The baby is the Baal Tshuva. The baby is not able to do anything to save himself. The only thing he can do is scream. And so the Baal Tshuva can do nothing to get closer to G-d. The only thing he can do is to cry out to G-d for help. When a parent rescues his baby from danger, he thinks to himself: how much I love this baby; how much I never want anything bad to happen to him; how much I will always protect him. How much I love all of my children and will never let anything bad happen to them. And so may it be G-d’s will that he acts like the parent in our story. It is our job to reach out to our friends and relatives who are not yet observant and inspire them. When we inspire our brothers and sisters to cry out to G-d, his compassion will fill the world; G-d will say "I will never again let anything bad happen to all of my children." Do you remember the story the Rabbi told the anguished father about the smugglers on the Russian border. The Rabbi told the man you have to know when to cry. The truth is that it is also important to know when to smile. While I was sitting shiva in Brooklyn, a 12-year old girl came to visit with her parents. About 2 feet in front of me sat this beautiful little girl who could not stop crying. Such a sweet little girl, just crying without end. I told her "Don't cry…. Do you know what everyone says about Morah Shoshana? " "They say that she always wore a smile." The little girl began to smile and nodded her head. "I have a picture here of Morah Shoshana with her second grade. Do you see who is missing from the picture?" She shook her head from side to side. "Morah Shoshana is missing from the picture…. Do you know why?" "Because Morah Shoshana was taking the picture…." "Do you know what Morah Shoshana is doing now…?" "She's taking pictures…." "And she wants you to smile." The next night the little girl came back with her parents. Her mother told me the reason why: "She wanted to come back to show you that she is smiling." Shoshana was a person that had complete faith in G-d. With that faith she was not only able to overcome every obstacle in her way, but she was able to grow from each and every obstacle. Four weeks after Shoshana's funeral, I went to Israel for her unveiling. While I was packing for the trip, I searched through our bedroom several times for an important document, but I could not find it. As I was about to give up, I looked up and saw a beautiful green box perched alone on a small shelf. I took it down from the shelf and looked at the box. There were beautiful white flowers on the top of the box along with part of a verse from Psalms: Even maoso habonim hysa l'rosh pina. The rock that the builders despised will be the foundation. Inside that box were all the difficulties that Shoshana had encountered in life and how she overcame them. On the top of all the papers was the one that I was looking for… Our Kesubah… Our marriage contract… Shoshana never put anything in the box after we got married. From time to time, Shoshana told me what she put in the box and read me the poems and essays inside of it that were most special to her. I knew the box was there and that it was beautiful. It sat several feet in front of my bed. And yet I never saw it And so it is with God… We live a lifetime and never see God… Although he is quite close at hand… Until the very end… When we see the beauty of God is more beautiful than anything we could imagine. May we merit to see God's beauty in our lifetime. With her wedding contract in her box of beauty, Shoshana had overcome all the obstacles in her life and was completely at peace and in a constant state of happiness. I asked her best friend Esther why she picked that verse. Esther said Shoshana explained it like this: When people have rocks blocking their way -- difficulties in life -- they try to remove the rocks. But not Shoshana - she believed that the rocks were a special gift of kindness; They were a special present from God. The rocks were not obstacles to overcome. They were the foundation to improve ourselves. They were the foundation to improve the entire Jewish people. And that is the secret of how Shoshana could make herself into such a caring and Godly person. And that is how she inspired hundreds of little girls, their parents, and all those she met in the brief 31 years of her life. I conclude with the words I said at Shoshana's graveside: "We stand now in front of a rock with Shoshana's name on it. May we be blessed to see the world like Shoshana wants us to see it." "The rock is not an obstacle…. It is an opportunity to build ourselves. The rock is an opportunity to build the Jewish people."