The following are three special messages I received this week that I’d like to share here. Each is beautiful and moving in its own right, but together they reminded me of our strength and unity, and of something we may have lost sight of amid the election campaigning.
The first message came from Sderot. A group of tenth-grade girls from the city's Be’eri Ulpana recently took a trip to Kiryat Shmona. They encountered a city coming back to life, with new families moving in, but they also saw the enormous challenges it still faces. So they decided to return this week, this time with a different purpose.
"We're heading to Kiryat Shmona, all the way from Sderot, for three days of volunteering and community service. Every donation we receive by next week will help us bring light to Kiryat Shmona."
Then they sent me a detailed document titled "Partnership Proposal." With youthful enthusiasm, but also an impressive sense of responsibility, they outlined exactly how they intend to spend the NIS 50,000 they are raising.
"Precisely because we know what it means to be resilient, to be evacuated from our homes, to miss home, and to cope with hardship, we want to come and help, from the south to the north."
Their proposal includes an itemized budget, from board games that will remain in the city's schools, to shopping at local businesses, to a project in which they will interview 20 longtime residents, hear their stories, and publish a special newsletter honoring them.
'Nice to Meet You'
The second message came from an initiative called "Nice to Meet You," a project that was first featured right here in this column.
Dr. Eliezer Be'eri, director of the Rehabilitation and Respiratory Care Department at ALYN Hospital for children, suffered a cardiac arrest while playing squash. His wife, Shira, was shocked to discover that he had been rushed to the hospital and admitted as an "unidentified patient" because no one had recognized him.
She chose a lovely photograph of her husband, wrote a short account of his life, and hung it beside his hospital bed. The first nurse who saw the poster told Shira how inspiring and motivating it was. When Dr. Be'eri recovered, thank God, the two of them began promoting the idea.
Their goal is to help medical staff in hospital departments see the patient as a whole person, rather than simply as a medical file. Volunteers create personalized posters that are displayed beside patients' beds, allowing everyone to get to know them a little better and bring a greater sense of humanity to the medical experience.
The volunteers visit hospital departments, sit with patients or their families, and get to know the person behind the diagnosis. To date, they have created some 3,000 posters.
Remembering those who fell in Kfar Aza
Then came the third message. Rabbi Moshe Shachor of the Ein Yehudit organization from Sderot sent me moving photographs from the Keshet School in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council.
Another public, nonreligious school is helping to write a Torah scroll. This happens quite often, but this week there was a particularly poignant moment of coming full circle, a special connection between religious and secular Jews, and between this world and the next.
"A few years ago," Rabbi Shachor told me, "my friend Ofir Libstein, of blessed memory, from Kibbutz Kfar Aza called me and our mutual friend, Rabbi Yehuda Alon of the Sulamot organization. He wanted to commission a Torah scroll for the children of Sha'ar HaNegev. We began working on the project.
"On October 7, Ofir, who was head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, was among the first people murdered. We remembered his request, which had now become his final wish.
"Precisely on October 7, three years later, we held a ceremony as part of the Otiot Shel Ahavah (Letters of Love) organization, which brings Torah scrolls to Jewish communities around the world. After Jews from around the world had written letters in the scroll, the schoolchildren also wrote letters in the new Sefer Torah, in memory of Ofir and all those from Kfar Aza who fell on October 7.
"The new head of the Regional Council, Uri Epstein, came to offer his blessings. Uri is Ofir's brother-in-law. Uri's son, Neta, was also killed that day, as was his mother, Bilha Epstein.
"It's hard to describe the emotion and the extraordinary intensity of that moment, as we watched the sacred letters being written into the Torah scroll that will be brought to Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
"Something shifted within all of us, especially the children, who have all been through so many challenges and upheavals. We saw the light in the eyes of the next generation. We felt that we had fulfilled the mission Ofir had entrusted to us."
Choices
These words are being written before the elections in Israel, but they will be published after the elections.
A great deal of energy has gone into deciding which ballot to place in the ballot box. That is important, of course, but let’s take the word elections, which in Hebrew also means choices, and apply it to other areas of our lives. Let’s think about the other decisions we make. Even without multimillion-shekel campaigns trying to influence our opinions, we should remember that we have the right to choose, and not only in the political sense.
This is a good time to recall the words of Maimonides: “Every person should regard himself throughout the year as though he is half meritorious and half guilty. And the entire world, too, is half meritorious and half guilty. If he commits a single sin, he tips the balance for himself and the entire world toward guilt, bringing about destruction. If he performs a single mitzvah, he tips the balance for himself and the entire world toward merit, bringing salvation and deliverance to himself and to them.”
Our freedom to choose does not end at the ballot box. It continues every moment of our lives.
In these weeks, as we read the weekly Torah portions, Avraham Avinu and Sarah Imeinu step onto the stage of history. Verse after verse, they choose goodness, faith, justice, and integrity. The Torah describes the good and righteous choices they make in their relationships with their family, their neighbors, and even their enemies.
Generation after generation, we continue to choose to follow in their footsteps.
Want to read more by Sivan Rahav Meir? Google The Daily Thought or visit sivanrahavmeir.com