Page 14 - HaMizrachi Pesach 5782 USA

The terrible losses you and your family have suffered forever altered
the trajectory of your life. Your son Uriel was killed while serving in
the IDF in 1998. A few years later your husband Eliezer died, and then
in 2010 your son Eliraz was also killed during his army service. How
did you have the strength to carry on after these moments?
When I was informed about Uriel’s death, my first reaction was shock. I
just couldn’t process it – how can it be that I spoke to my son yesterday,
and today he isn’t here anymore? I was not ready for his death; I had not
prepared for it.
After the shiva, do you know what the first challenge I faced was? To
make a sandwich for my daughter in third grade. Do you know how much
strength that took? Who wants to carry on normal life? Who wants to
eat? I just wanted Uriel’s grave to open up and swallow me up.
I also had to be the support for my whole household. Each member of the
family processed the loss differently. One child started asking, “Where is
G-d, how could He have done something like this?” My husband became
physically sick – on Uriel’s first yahrzeit he suffered a heart attack. I
knew I was the backbone of the family. As a woman, I had a deep desire
to make sure my house wouldn’t fall apart, and this made me find the
strength to be the rock of the house. It was very difficult, but I knew
what my goal was.
In addition to the effort just to keep my household going, there were also
the questions of faith. When we lived in the Sinai Desert, Eliezer set up a
one-man kiruv program with a shul and beit midrash in Sharm El Sheikh.
“This is Torah, and this is its reward?” (Menachot 29b). There is the line
often quoted from Iyov, “Hashem has given life, and has taken life, may
Hashem’s name be blessed” (Iyov 1:21). I had a very hard time with that
line, and am jealous of those who are able to really feel that. I am not an
angel, I am a mother. I just want my son to hug him, to speak with him,
to feel him. I turned to Hashem, and demanded from Him that He give
me my son!

But then a conversation began, a dialogue with G-d. I would talk to Him,
as if He was right next to me, and say, “This isn’t fair, why are You doing
this?” And a tango began between us. Sometimes we would be close,
sometimes he would throw me away, we would move closer, move further;
but the dance began. I began to be able to see the good I still had in my
life, to be appreciative, and to focus on life rather than on death.
Then, five years after Uriel was killed, my husband Eliezer died. I was
alone, a widow, with five children. You might not believe it, but some of
my lowest moments were in seemingly simple situations. I remember
that I had to replace a lightbulb. It was dark in the house, no one else was
around, and I was scared to get up on the chair in case I fell. At that point
I shouted, “Eliezer, where are you?!” The challenges are in living daily life
with a sense of pressure that everything is on me – to buy things, to fix
things, to keep life going – everything is on me. But I had already taught
myself how to cope in certain ways. I knew that I had to try and focus on
the good, such as my first grandchildren being born.

And then, a few years later Eliraz was killed in action. This time it was
different, because I knew what death was. Having experienced it before,
I already knew what I was going to go through again. However, there
were new aspects that I hadn’t had before. I was now a grandmother,
and had to support my grandchildren who no longer had their father. I
had to support my daughter-in-law, who was only 32 years old and was
now a widow with four young children.

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