In Memory of the Fogel Family

Much of the Jewish world was shaken on March 11, 2011, when terrorists broke into a house in Itamar, a Jewish village in the West Bank, belonging to Ruth and Udi Fogel. The terrorists butchered both parents and three of their children, (aged eleven, four and three months). The bodies were discovered later that night when the family’s twelve-year-old daughter returned home from a youth activity, and found her two-year-old brother crying, shaking and trying to wake up mommy and daddy.
As part of the Jewish community my heart goes out to the Fogel family and to all of Israel. When something like this happens, it happens to all of us

The following verses from a daily morning psalm convey a comforting message:


“The Builder of Jerusalem is Hashem; He will gather in the dispersed of Israel. He is the Healer of the brokenhearted, and the One Who binds up their sorrows.” (Psalm 147:2, 3)
“Who binds up their sorrows” – The Malbim, a noted biblical commentator of the 19th century, explains that this is referring to the sorrow within the heart, for in place of the sorrow, there will be joy and gladness.
When Hashem will fully rebuild Jerusalem through the ingathering of all our exiles, He will also heal our broken hearts, and the sorrow within our hearts will be replaced by joy and gladness. In the very next verse, the psalm reveals the secret of this healing process through an ancient biblical metaphor for our people – the stars:
“The One Who counts the number of the stars, to all of them He assigns names.” (Verse 4)
In order to begin to understand the healing and comforting message of this metaphor, we need to refer to a Divine promise to “Avraham Avinu” – Abraham, our father – regarding his chosen descendants who would inherit the Promised Land. Hashem told Avraham to gaze at the stars and then said to him:
“So shall your offspring be!” (Genesis 15:5)
The Malbim explains that this particular Divine promise which compares these descendants to the stars cannot just be referring to quantity, since Hashem already told Avraham that these descendants will be numerous like “the dust of the earth” (Genesis 13:16). According to the Malbim, the comparison to the stars is therefore emphasizing the “quality” of these descendants. The Malbim writes:
“Each one of them will be an important world as an individual, and will be counted as an individual, just as Hashem counts the stars, for each star is a world within itself.”
This explanation of the Malbim can help us to understand why David states that “the Healer of the brokenhearted, and the One Who binds up their sorrows” is also “the One Who counts the number of the stars, to all of them He assigns names.” The healing of our broken hearts will take place when the Healing One gives each of us the full and joyous awareness of the following truth:
Just as each star is a unique world with a name that expresses its unique purpose within creation, so too, each of us is a unique world with a name that expresses our unique purpose within the creation.
During the long exile, our hearts became broken as a result of the great suffering we experienced as a people and as individuals; moreover, this great suffering caused many of us to forget our true spiritual worth and greatness. In the age of the great in gathering in Jerusalem, the Healing One will help us to realize that each of us is a light-giving “star” with a unique purpose and name.


Love Your Neighbor
by Yvette Alt Miller
The Torah commands: “And you shall love your fellow as you love yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)

How can we actually love another as much as we love my own selves? It’s a challenging commandment. Yet a central one: for only by valuing other people’s lives, by thinking of them as fully human, can we stay connected with others. It’s the only way we ourselves can remain fully human too.

Judaism teaches that we are all created in the image of G*d. Each one of us reflects a different facet of the Divine. When we relate to our fellow men and women, we are relating to holy beings.

Judaism also provides us with a wealth of specific mitzvot to ensure that we value and connect with others: offering hospitality, visiting the sick, helping a poor bride to make a beautiful wedding, acting as a mediator between quarreling people. These are not merely nice things to do; in our timeless Jewish tradition, they are obligations: commandments that bind us to others and elevate us all. We are also obligated to stop and feel the pain of our brothers and sisters.

Identifying with others, especially those who are different than us, doesn’t come easily. But it is the only way we can become the people G*d intended for us to be.

Today, in memory of the Fogels, let us each try to live up to this central commandment to love and value others a little more.
Much emunah and ahavah, Elisheva Amaris