Last Shabbat we were in Cincinnati for our grandson’s Bar Mitzva.
Thank Gd when it rains it pours and we are grateful for the blessings.
At one point during the Shabbat I left the building and when I wanted to return I realized I was locked out.
I knocked on the door but no one was around on that level and the situation looked bleak.
Then I noticed a little piece of paper glued to the glass door.
In Hebrew it gave clues to the door code.
The first sentence said Gd is __
The second sentence said
There are ___patriarchs
The third sentence said
There are ____matriarchs
And the fourth sentence said
There are ____tablets that were given at Sinai.
If you know, you know!
Plug in the right numbers and voila you open the door!
Numbers are on my mind.
Today is Day 412 of this interminable war.
This past week the IDF reported that the 800th soldier had fallen.
800!
That’s a huge number.
So many bereft parents, children and family members.
When you hear a number it is hard to relate to the individuals who make up that number.
It is only through the personal stories that we get glimpses of that allow us to put a name to that number.
We never will allow our people to just become numbers.
That’s what the Nazis did to us.
So I read voraciously about each and every person.
The husband who sent a love note and flowers to his wife for Shabbat, only to have them arrive after his death.
Or the parents who extol the loving child who made it his priority to care for a developmentally delayed child in his community, sharing his precious free time generously.
Or our very own Dekel Swissa zl who was saving money to write a Torah scroll.
Stories of soldiers who are injured in battle and therefore exempt from service, who insist on returning to their comrades and to the battlefield as soon as they are cleared medically.