Our Succah in Gan Eden

The week before my husband was niftar, we celebrated Succos in grand style – hashgahically invited much of our Israeli family that we hadn’t seen for years, and old friends who we have never had over.

Before we built the Succah though, our kids voiced their complaints about our boring and colorless Succah. Every year we covered the walls with off-white sheets, put up real pictures of Gedolim, and had a plain looking Succah with all of our furniture, just like our home.

I brought up their concerns with their Aba. “Colorful lights, Aba.” “The children requesteth colorful lights this year in accordance with their neighbors’ rituals”.

Gershon zt”l was very makpid on the halacha that a Succah needs to be like the inside of our house and since we didn’t decorate the inside of our house with colorful lights, so too we shouldn’t decorate the Succah with colorful lights.

“The kids are upset. Isn’t part of the mitzva that they should enjoy the Succah too?” I argued.

Aba decided to be silent, as I obviously was not hearing him…

I started to interview other neighbors, and especially the daughter of a big Rabbi in the Old City who I respected very much. She said that her father made sure that the Succah looked like his home but did give each kid a very little corner to hang their drawings. “Aha!” I thought. In my home, we have a kids’ section, so too our Succah will have a kids’ section. I was sure I had found the secret to pleasing my kids and honoring my husband by adhering to the halacha. My legal background had not been for nothing!

We spent many fine hours shopping with my kids in Geula for all of their kids’ corner trinkets. Somehow, in my haste and excitement, I had purchased many hanging vines, grapes, and various pomegranates and other fruits. I hung them proudly all around the side and top of the Succah, and arranged a cute corner for the kids along with the finer wall sheets and dishes that my late husband preferred so as to make the Succah very home-like. I was very proud of my ingenuitive thinking.

My husband walked in and was very impressed. But then he looked at all the hanging vines curiously and said..
‘hmm… does this look like a home? Do we have these hanging vines at home?” And I realized that in my hashkafic victories I had somehow forgotten to consider the validity of these vines in the context of our home theme – they just looked so appealing. Now what? I really liked them and I was already done. But what about our Succah being like our home?

Then someone walked in and said “Wow, it looks like Gan Eden in here”. “Aha!” I said. I got it. This is our home in Gan Eden. I called Gershon zt”l into the Succah and said “Gershon, this Succah is modeled after our home in Gan Eden.”

So there we had it. We spent Succos in our Gan Eden home-themed Succah.

Just over a week later, Gershon zt”l went to rest in his eternal Gan Eden Succah.
I hope it is much nicer 🙂

Gershon zt’l teaching someone how to shake a lulav

BS”D

I realized that there are two sweet stories we found out during shiva that never made the newsreels, but are definitely newsworthy, so I decided to share them with you now.

A year ago, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah held a raffle. There were many prizes, but the top prize, given to whomever donated or raised at least $3,600, was a personal chavrusa (learning session) with the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Tagger himself. When the raffle was over, Gershon approached Rabbi Tagger with the list of $3,600 chavrusa winners and told him to pay personal attention to one specific name on that list who he noticed could use some extra chizuk (support). Rabbi Tagger agreed.

Hashgahically (through Divine Providence), while Rabbi Tagger met with the rest of the raffle committee at a different time, he took a look at their list of winners. He compared his list to their list and noticed an extra name on his – the person to which Gershon Zt’L told him to pay special attention.

When confronted as to why Gershon’s list was different than the committee list, Gershon came clean and admitted to putting the money in the bank because he saw that this bochur (yeshiva boy) was struggling and could use some extra learning time with the Rosh Yeshiva.
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A Zilberman’s lady came to the shiva with a funny story to tell. She said her husband was out in the Old City late one night after midnight and saw Gershon Zt’L walking around alone and looking dismayed. He asked him what was wrong. Gershon said that he had just had renovations done on the home and the workers seem to have lost two mezuzas – one for the front door and the other to our bedroom. It was too late to reach anyone and he couldn’t go to sleep so he went outside in hope of a yeshua (salvation). The man looked at him and said it is your lucky night, I have two extra mezuzas at my home, come with me. Gershon went to his home, took the mezuzas, affixed them with tape and was able to go to sleep.
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With love from Jerusalem,
Batya

B”SD

Shalom wonderful people,

I wanted to offer those of you who were not able to attend the event, a link to the video and also the transcribed version thanks to a new friend who came to the shiur – Shira Bienstock.

	To hear both talks, click here.
	For just my talk, click here.

or for men, the transcript is below.

As for how I am doing… depends on the hour, the day. Emunah is really not a gift – it is a continual exercise. I go to the ‘gym’ as much as I can.

Blessings from a snowy Jerusalem,
Batya

Batya Burd, Zos Chanukah 5774

“This is a little strange for me. I haven’t really gotten up to speak in this yeshiva ever. I also wasn’t a Rebbetzin before. I guess I got the Bircas HaTorah smichah. It’s funny because after I told my son about his father’s passing, during his crying he said, “Abba didn’t even get smicha!” Well, at least I had a little comic relief moment in this whole thing. I said, “Yaakov, you know smicha only matters in this world. It’s okay. Where he is it doesn’t matter anymore.” It’s actually a very big joke with us, because Gershon never planned to get smicha, but ever since ‘then’ everyone has been calling him Rabbi. So I tell my son, “It’s okay, Abba is a Rabbi now and got smicha.” And I’m a Rebbetzin. This is what it takes….

Hi, I am Batya Burd. Unfortunately you know much of my story. Two months ago, exactly today on the Hebrew calendar and on the English calendar, I went away for Shabbos with my husband to celebrate his fourtieth birthday. It was a very romantic getaway. Champagne on ice. We had cake and a note from the manager and an incredible sea-view. We were doing a little bit of a life review together– really for him—this is such big milestone in his life—40. Everybody waits for 40. He was smiling from ear to ear. I’ve never ever seen him so happy, and so fulfilled, and so proud of himself. I said to him, “You know, you’re forty. You just finished a life. Forty is a life. It’s a beginning and an end of something…and this is it! You just finished a life.” He just had this incredible smile and he said, “Yeah.” Then we decided to go to the beach, to this little spot we know to be alone. On the way there we were reflecting. Rebbetzin Heller’s husband had just died, and I said to him, “I just can’t believe it. I can’t believe in an instant, her life is completely different. In one second. She probably has to go alone now travelling to raise money…our sister was just there for Sukkos. I just can’t believe it. How one second your life is one way, and the next second you’re living a totally different life.” Half an hour later I knew what that felt like.

When an author writes a book, he uses foreshadowing. So, as much as I walk the pages of my life now, I see Hashem’s–the Author of my life– foreshadowing. Introducing me to the next pages as I go along…

As I was on that beach, a lot of things went through my mind. I felt how much my life was going to be shaken. I felt how much Bircas Hatorah and the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Tagger’s life were going to be shaken. But it was a very personal, earth-shaking event. Until…I came to the levaya (funeral), and then continued life, and I saw that it was really Klal Yisrael’s tragedy, and something earthshaking for all of us, which was shocking to me. I had no idea how big this was going to be. And in fact, every day, I still try to understand what’s happening out there, outside of my family, outside of my personal world.

People have been really affected. People have been very shaken. For some reason, some of the basis of people’s Yiddishkeit is somehow not so firm now. Someone came up to me and said that she felt this was too big. She said, “We need chizuk, G-d, this is just too big for us.” And I couldn’t understand. I mean, this wasn’t someone that was in her family. So, what’s happening here?

I got to thinking about it a bit more and I started to have some ideas about what’s happening. There are many different things happening, but I saw one. That was…many people die, and I’m sure we know many people, if not personally then stories of people dying, and there’s usually something that they die from. They die from a disease, they die from a war, they die from something. I think there is a part of us that is only comfortable with having them die from that thing that took them. It’s the Arab suicide bomber. It’s their diet—they just had the wrong diet–if they just were a vegetarian, they wouldn’t have gotten this disease! They were on the wrong side of town- they were doing something dangerous. G-d, help us! Save us from the wars. Save us from the intifada. Save us from our sicknesses– help our doctors to have the right medicine– help us to make the right decisions.

It’s extremely uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable, to look this in the face and say—this was a former lifeguard, who was completely healthy, completely awake, completely fine, swimming in waves that he could totally handle. And one little rock from a wave knocked him out.

Save us from You, G-d.

It’s pretty clear that Hashem took him. That makes people very uncomfortable. I’m uncomfortable saying that in front of you guys, actually. I love G-d. Don’t worry, I’m getting somewhere…

A friend of mine ran over to my house a few weeks ago. She ran in and said, “How are you doing? I just had a dream about you.” I said, “Really? What was the dream?” She said, “I had a dream you were wearing something very inappropriate for a religious person. Are you okay?” I said, “I’m not going ‘off the derech’ just yet. I’m not okay, but I’m still tznius, covering my hair, keeping kashrus. This is not affecting my Yiddishkeit, as far as I know. Not today.” In fact, it actually disturbed me that she was nervous for me and for my Yiddishkeit. It really disturbed me. I realized this was starting to become kind of a pattern…someone goes through a divorce, they go through a loss of a loved one…what are the chances of staying ‘on’? Of not falling a little bit? Of not saying, “This is what you gave me, G-d? Here I am doing everything for you. And look at the troubles I’m having in my life. Why should I do this? Why am I making so much effort? It’s so much easier to relax, be merry. What’s this all for anyway? You abandoned me. I’ll abandon You.” Chas v’Shalom. It’s very serious. It really is.

So, we all have this in us. It’s really just like this place of….wanting good, for good. So: go back to basics, to the first principles. Why am I doing this, and why should it not affect my Yiddishkeit? If I see that it brings me to tragedy and it definitely doesn’t protect me from suffering – severe suffering and severe trauma…and yet here I am. Keeping mitzvos. Why am I keeping mitzvos? Is it because Shabbos is nice? In order to have a nice community? To feel good through giving? It feels good to be good. ( But sometimes it doesn’t feel good to be good; sometimes it doesn’t help.)

This place…is sometimes fun and exciting. Sometimes it’s sad and surreal. Sometimes it’s warm and wonderful.

This place is a STAGE – in both senses of the word. It’s a stage in the sense of time – a time-period . And it’s a stage in terms of drama – a platform for a scene. I’m not just wearing a wig, I’m wearing a body. I’m wearing a body for a certain amount of time. Then I won’t be. Then I will be what I am.

What am I? I am a potentially eternal being, who has been brought here to learn from this place. I, like all of you, and everyone else, have something left to accomplish here. I, like all of you, am broken in some way, and not yet able to be part of that Infinite Light of G-d. And I need this place to enable me to return home in a state that I can fuse with the Light of G-d. I need these opportunities; sometimes I need the suffering. When I allow myself to learn what I’m here to learn, to experience–without pushing away–the pain that comes to me, I actually do it. There’s actually spiritual transformation that happens. I do not seek it. I am not a masochist. But if it sought me, then I’m clear that I’m doing it. And when I do it, I rise to the next level, then the next level, then the next level; sometimes it’s through good, and sometimes it’s not.

So will it affect my Yiddishkeit? Yes. It’s completely in-line with my Yiddishkeit. It’s completely in-line with my Yiddishkeit. Yiddishkeit is a spiritual reality that we are all souls here to be fixed, and whatever happens to us, we need to use it to come closer. In fact, it’s even more powerful when something this big happens to us, because we get siyata d’shmaya and the ability to make great leaps with one trial. Because here we can actually make “the big money,” as they say in yeshiva. There are certain times in your life when you make ‘a little money’ spiritually speaking–you do a little chessed—and there are certain times when G-d just puts on your plate the jackpot. It doesn’t look like a jackpot. You have to be wearing certain eyes. But when you see the true goal of what we’re doing here, you understand that this is where the ‘big money’ is, if you use it.

People ask why. Tonight Rabbi Katz said that people ask “why”–everybody wants to know why, because we’re insecure people and we need security. We need to know why, and of course nobody can answer the question why.

It’s funny. I’ve always had such respect for ants. I really have. They are always busy, busy at work. You step on this master creation that they have spent months building…and they just turn around and build elsewhere. You know, they could stand and complain, “Do you realize what you just did? I just put my heart and soul in that for the last 10 years! I arranged a whole troupe of people. We had something here. I just can’t get over this; you have to tell me why .”

They accept. They turn around and keep doing what they are supposed to do. They are just ants. Hashem put them here to be ants, and they keep going as ants are supposed to do. If you destroy it, they’ll turn around and create it somewhere else and keep going. Hashem told us that we can learn a middah from every animal, and I so want to learn this middah from an ant.

I can’t tell you why, nor can anyone tell me. But I do know about Hashem’s hashgochas, and Hashem’s world, enough to give you a potential scenario to quench the why and the how.

First off, is a pretty obvious one. “Hashem using tzadikkim as korbanos for the generation.”

But the second one is a little more intricate and a little more interesting. Again, I don’t know why, and I don’t know if this true. I don’t think it’s true, but it might be. It could be. The point is that Hashem does work like this.

From my side of things, let’s say that, in a previous life (yes, Judaism does believe in reincarnation), I was a religious girl and I was in the Holocaust. I saw a lot of tragedy before me. I saw someone very dear to me die before me. I could not understand how a good and loving and giving G-d could do such a thing, and I abandoned His Ways, because I had a misunderstanding of what Judaism was. I spoke out very strongly to people around me, that there must be no G-d! That He must have abandoned us, because how could he let this happen? I brought others down with me. I eventually died. When I went up to shamayim, I had a long talk before the Throne of Glory as to what my scenario was going to be. I was unfortunately told that, not only had I not learned the lessons of my life, but I had gone farther and caused a lot of destruction in the world. Now I had more repairing to do, and I could not join the Light of the Ein Sof, because I was faulted in those ways. So Hashem was going to give me another opportunity to go down and get it right this time, and fix what I had done before. So this time, instead of being raised in a religious family and ‘going off’, this time I had to be raised in a non-religious family and I had to find my way back to Him. When I finally found my way, Hashem would give me a good life. Then, again, he would have someone very dear die before me. This time, I was going to be given ample opportunity to stay strong, and I was going to be given a platform to mechazek other people to stay strong. In that way, not only would I rectify what I had done before, but I would go even higher.

What a good, loving, caring, compassionate G-d…to allow me such an opportunity to rectify and perfect myself and the world around me.

Now there’s the question of Gershon Zt”L. Why? Forty years. The prime of his life. Happy, healthy, accomplished, five little kids under ten. Someone said to me, “Why didn’t G-d take me and not him?” I don’t think his death was a punishment for him. Again, why? Let’s say…some big tzadik was in shamayim after 80 years and said, “Hashem, I did everything You asked me for. Why didn’t I get 120 years like Moshe Rabbeinu?” “Okay, I’ll give you forty more. Go get as many mitzvos as you can. Get a higher place up here…”

I don’t feel that Gershon zt”l is a miskein. I feel that we should envy him. A lot. I feel that he got it. He saw through all of it and he worked liked crazy; he worked like crazy at what this place is really about. People always talk about saving for retirement (well, not in Israel). But everywhere else, they are thinking about saving for retirement. So, Gershon Zt”L skipped to the real retirement. He saved feverishly for retirement. Feverishly. And now he is retired. He’s in Tahiti now (aka Gan Eden l’havdil). A little chessed investment package here…a little mussar shiur RRSP….he got it. He got it and he used his time. And he’s beautiful. He’s shining. He’s happy. He’s there. We wish we could get there like him.

But, Hashem doesn’ t leave us alone.

I feel I have to quote a pasuk – I think I’m expected to do that, so I will. When Yosef was riding down to Mitzrayim, where he would spent 12 years in an Egyptian jail, dark, alone, potentially feeling pretty abandoned (chas v’shalom), it says, “Behold! A caravan was coming from Gilead and in it had spices: balsam and lotus.” The camels usually carried foul smelling fuels, but this caravan that he rode in had beautiful smelling spices. It was just Hashem sending him a little wave of hashgocha pratis, a little flare to say, “Listen, I’m with you. I’m with you, I’m going down with you. I know you’re there. Remember me. Remember that I’m with you still. You’re not alone.”

My caravan, through my darkness, has been sprinkled with the most incredible-smelling spices. I have so many people to thank on so many different levels, I can’t even begin. I have so much love. I have never seen people come out of themselves like this, ever. I have never seen such a kiruv event as what happens in my house, and on my street. I have so much nachas seeing who you people are, and how much love you have, for us, for my children…how much you want to make us so happy. I know you are all very good, but Hashem gave you that love.

I’m going to tell you a very personal story, and I also have to say that I was only told 24 hours ago that we cannot make people cry on Chanukah–we have to inspire people on Chanukah. So I’m going to say this with the caveat that you please hold back your tears unless you’re running to the Kotel and davening after—then you’re allowed. And, if I can hold back tears on Shabbos – you can hold back tears now.

Some of you know that this ‘event’ took place Erev Shabbos, with too little time for anybody to get to the Tel Aviv hospital room to meet me. So, as it was, I spent Shabbos, still in my tznius beachwear, without doctors, without anyone except the weekend nurse staff (who didn’t even know I was there), and my (late) husband. I knew it was really bad. In fact, I was shocked that I was in the hospital in the first place. But I thought, —there must be a ray of hope, then. He must have made it to the hospital for a reason. This must be for something.

A few years back, my father had a very bad stroke. It had been several days until he got help, and he was in a coma. After 3 weeks he was diagnosed to be a “vegetable.” I, along with my sister, flew down to be with him, to nurse him back to health, after the doctors told us to go home, after the doctors told me to go home. I devoted my life and soul to him for 6 weeks. I ended up leaving my family and using every ounce of intelligence, healing power, tefilla power, resource power, anything I could muster up to ignite some brain activity, to get feet moving, to inspire a ‘will of life’ within him again so that he would fight to come back. Baruch Hashem, he’s actually a person now.

As I sat by husband’s bedside that Shabbos, the situation looked all too familiar. I think it was 8 o’clock in the morning on Shabbos; I actually hadn’t slept one second. I had begged. I had cried. I had given forgiveness. I had asked for forgiveness. I had spoken everything possible out that I could ever want in my life. To him. To G-d. I did every type of meditation possible. I had sent out red flags to—I don’t know how many—people to get tefillos going. People around the world were davening, taking on things (I had no idea, back then).

I was exhausted…mentally, spiritually, physically. I was so exhausted. I knew he was so, so far…so much farther than my father had been when he was diagnosed a “vegetable.” (And I had completely ignored the doctors and went ahead with healing initiatives anyway). But now, I had two more children, I was older, and more tired…and now ‘I didn’t have a husband to help me with the kids while I help my parents’. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know what it was going to take; I just knew it was going to take a lot. And, I didn’t know what I was going to ‘get’ in the end; I just knew I wasn’t going to get much. I was so tired. I remember looking up at G-d (all of the sudden, at moments like this you kind of get your life flashing before your eyes; all of the sudden you’re no longer where you are, you’re everywhere you’ve been and potentially where you’re going) and I remembered that before ‘Batya Burd’ I was a girl named Lisa Fefer, who had a very different life. But when I got to ‘Batya Burd,’ I said, “Ahh…I have arrived. This is where I am, and this is where I’m going.”

But in that moment, I felt like I couldn’t do it…I was exhausted. I looked up at G-d and I said, “G-d, I’ve been Lisa Fefer and then I was Batya Burd. You can take me to where I’m going next…” And I got up, and I took a step to walk away.

Then this incredible, incredible surge of energy just came over me, and I ran back to the bed, and I held onto him. I said, “No!! I want to be ‘Batya Burd.’ I don’t care what it takes. I just want you to be there next to me. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m Batya Burd.”

I pictured him next to me, at the Shabbos table, in a wheelchair, drooling, as I said Kiddush proudly, and talked to the kids about what Abba says, and what Abba would do. And I was so happy. I got this incredible gift of love from Above… of unconditional love for my spouse. All I wanted was the presence of his neshama, just to be there. It was going to be enough to make me happy.

This shocked me.

Does anyone have unconditional love for their spouse? Or anyone, other than maybe a child? Does anyone even think that’s a goal of theirs in life: that they want to meet someone and then unconditionally love them? It definitely wasn’t on the radar for me. What are your needs? What are my needs? Let’s make some compromises. How can we fit each other into the picture here? Totally normal.

This was totally other-worldly, and very G-dly. I hate that it was only accessible in such a moment…but it was accessible, and it was an acquisition. It wasn’t a feeling. It was something I acquired, that I was gifted from Above, and that stays with me—whether there is a husband or not a husband—it is something I own. It is the ability to give total unconditional love, and it was the greatest gift Hashem could have given me in that moment.

When my husband did leave, I had to go through a process. I’m still in the process, but it was very clear what the process should be, amongst the other million processes I have to go through. But this gift of unconditional love, along with all the different feelings that I had for my husband, and the dedication, and the mesiras nefesh, and the…and the…it is all meant now to be channeled toward…straight toward…HaKadosh Baruch Hu. All these feelings that I have developed, all this devotion, all this love, all the unconditionalness…is to be package-wrapped and gifted to my Creator. Because that’s what it’s there for.

Hashem is always constant. Hashem says, “You want to be close? You change. You change to be like Me and you will be close to Me.” I know Rabbi Kelemen’s famous for saying that ‘closeness in the physical world is measured by proximity; while closeness in the spiritual world is measured by similarity’. G-d says, “You want to be close to me? Be like Me. You’ll resonate with Me. You’ll feel Me.” Halevay that I could be in a place where I could see that I would be so happy to do anything just so G-d would be close to me in any capacity, shape, or form. Halevay, just His Presence…just the Presence of the Shechina with me…is enough to give me life. I don’t care what I have to do. I don’t care how many years I have to dedicate to rehab, to this, to that; I don’t care what job you give me G-d. I just want to be close to you and that’s enough. That doesn’t come from G-d; that comes from us, and a choice that we make to come close.

I actually, just yesterday, really saw it with my kids. I, like other mothers, often feel like I have to do so much to entertain them, but I remember just sitting on the couch yesterday, and I really did nothing. I basically said nothing. One was sitting on my lap, and one was beside me, and I just saw how much joy and how much life they get just by my presence. It’s unbelievable. It’s so incredible. I’m doing nothing…I’m just here…and I’m like the sun that feeds these little plants. They get everything just from my presence; I do nothing! Look how much we’re all worth: we just have to be here, and we’re such life-givers!

About six years ago, Rabbi Green, the senior Rosh Yeshiva of this yeshiva, used to give a women’s seminar at the Churva shul (it wasn’t such a deluxe Churva shul then). I had a very spiritual dream, and I was so excited (you know, sometimes you get one, and it just keeps you going). So I came to him, and I said, “You’re not going to believe this. I feel like my life just unfolded last night. I had a dream that I was a soul before I was born. I was in this kind of a classroom, and there was a woman—this great woman—giving a talk and I couldn’t hear her. I was trying so hard to hear what she had to say. But the one thing I did hear is that she was instructing me for my life to come, and she was saying that everything that I am about to go through – ie everything that I went through (this was six years ago before this tragedy happened) was so that I could learn to have an unconditional love of G-d.” I said, “Rabbi Green, this is it. I know the purpose of my problems in life…it’s just so I could come to an unconditional love of G-d.”

I’m still on that road…

I think I just understand G-d in a way that could be different. I understand G-d as so different than us. So different than what we expect Him to be. I understand G-d as a very High Intelligence, who gives us the opportunity to also be that way. To be above ourselves.

It’s complicated, suffering. Because there’s this part – the soul, and this part – the body. This part (the soul) knows and understands that everything is for the good, and knows and understands how much love Hashem shows for us, and knows and understands that it is all supposed to be. But then there is this part–this “body” part—that just has so many feelings that don’t work within the picture. I’m sure you know what those feelings are. I could name a few. Frustration. Loss. Pain. Anger. Entitlement. Self-pity. Laziness. They are all valid. They are all real. They all have to be addressed. Because it’s our reality. We’re not robots who function just on hashkofa, and we’re not bodies that only function according to how we feel. We are both.

The real “we” is the puppet-master between the two: the one that can see, “Yeah, this is my body going through a process”. I need to respect that process and go through it. I need to let it out in a healthy way, but I need it not to guide me. I need to allow my feelings of mourning and loss to be felt, but not to guide me into what observance level I should have. I need it just to be. I need to just experience it and let it happen. And wait for the light at the end of the tunnel, that eventually will happen, to bring me to a higher level. I need to use it, for the goals of my soul, within the framework of the understanding that I know that it’s for the best. Even when I’m feeling angry and I’m feeling pain and I’m feeling frustrated and I’m feeling abandoned, it’s okay. *

It doesn’t mean I am going to abandon.

It means I’m going to wait for it go, and get the help I need. I’m going to go through the pain and the emotion, and I’m going to allow it to bring me to the next place. But my hashkofa is going to govern whether or not I keep Shabbos, or throw it away (and then meet my Maker and be told I need to go do it all over again because I didn’t quite get it yet).

I had hoped that this evening would bring me healing, as well other people, and I think that it has. I don’t know why, I just needed to talk. Again, I’m still on that road and I don’t know how long that road is going to be for, and I don’t think it even really matters because it’s so clear that it’s my road. And it’s so clear that it’s from G-d. And as my late husband always said, “Absolutely nothing is relevant except for the mitzvah in front of you, and what the right thing is to do now.” So living in the present is what I am doing now.

I just want to bless everyone that they should follow their path properly—they should see their path. If not embracing them, they should at least accept their conflicts, their challenges, in life, because they are theirs to perfect themselves. Ask aitzeh. Do the right thing. And know that it’s not about Mrs. So & So who put her garbage in front of my door today; it’s about me. Hashem went through a lot of effort today to help me learn savlanus and dan l’kaf zechus. Please G-d, I shouldn’t waste this opportunity— let me take a couple of minutes to actually do it, in this moment.

Rebbetzin Weinberg said something important; she wanted me to add that life is a choice. It’s not an event that happens to you. It’s a choice that you make of how to react to the event. It’s a conscious choice, and just by making the choice you already fix your soul, and you already come closer. Nobody has to know…there can always be a conversation going on in your head between you and your Maker. And, there’s no reason to be insecure about what other people think of you because your Maker already knows who you are and what you are thinking.

Hashem should bless us all with true chizuk. Hashem should bless us all with clarity in what we’re actually doing. If we have that, then an ‘event’ like this won’t shake us, because it’s perfectly in sync with our worldview about Torah, and the universe. It is with mine.

I hope that my late husband, Gershon Binyamin ben Eliezer, gets tremendous nachas from his family, from his community, and from everyone, and that he gets a tremendous aliyas neshama. And that Hashem gets nachas from all of us…that you truly rise to the level that you can be at before it’s your time, please G-d, it should be after 120.”

11 years ago this week, I met my late husband. Chanukah time was always an unofficial happy dating anniversary for us. It is a time I naturally get reminiscent. All of our dates I remember freezing cold weather in the rain. Somehow it didn’t bother us quite that much.

I haven’t written in a while because I honestly haven’t felt very connected to a high place. After the initial shock, hospital time, and funeral, the meaning of everything was so clear, vivid and elevated. You may not believe me, but I had the same feeling sitting on my shiva chair as I did sitting on my kalla chair at my wedding giving brachos. The same divine energy was coming through me; I was just in between those who greeted me and the message being sent from Above. When my late husband’s soul left his body, I felt touched by the Shechina, along with everyone in the room. I felt that I had a tiny glimpse into Olam HaEmes and this clarity of sight brought me through so much of the first weeks. After the shloshim, a lot of fog and muck of daily life set in.

Now what? No more articles. No more new hidden chesed or tzaddik stories. No more fanfare. No more new mitzvos being taken on for his soul. No more people changing their lives. Now what?

I still ask myself that question and in fact often get vertigo (that sensation scuba divers often get underwater when they don’t know which way is up). I just know that Hashem wants me to go forward now and continue. My husband always led his life by the Torah principle that Hashem leads you in the way that you want to go. So I usually just start with trying to align my will with Hashem’s Will, even if I don’t know where that goes, and I know that He will lead me there eventually if I am honest about it.

But the way has been dark for me for a while. There has been no inspiration – just a lot of to do’s. I find myself ducking that dreadful yet seemingly normal question on the streets – “how are you?”. How am I? I am walking right now, how are you? Answering the question requires an emotional check which brings up the pain at often very inappropriate times. Functioning normally in a crowd is quite tricky. But when people skip the how are you question and go straight to the ‘I can’t imagine what you are going through and I am so sorry’ or give a compliment, I do truly appreciate it and it helps me to carry the load.

We are all carrying the load that Adam and Chava left us with and that will please G-d take us speedily into the Beis Hamikdash – Mashiach days!

So, tonight as I sat sick in bed and listened to one of my first Torah classes, I felt closer for the first time in a while. As I paced my living room, I decided to re-frame my story. I want to tell the saga from an angle that hasn’t yet been told. Many years ago in shamayim, my soul was offered the following:

Hashem: “Batya, I have a great guy for you. He is a ba’al middos, yarei shamayim, good-looking, tall, ambitious. You and he will build a great and exciting life, together reaching amazing spiritual heights and have five (k’nayna hara) children. In the marriage, he will actualize himself, create a beautiful Olam Haba and become a hidden tzaddik. Then, after ten years, when you least expect it, I will take him from you suddenly and you will be left with his legacy to carry on. But, I will give you plenty of physical, emotional and spiritual help from multitudes who love you both.”

Batya: “Thank you Hashem, I accept.”

Today, I asked myself this question again. If G-d came to me to offer this full package again, what would I say?
I realized that my soul would accept. So, I hereby renew my commitment/vows to you Hashem, as difficult as the plight may be.

I love you all and couldn’t do this without you.

Blessings from Jerusalem,
Batya

Click here to watch.

MC – Reb Daniel Rostenne, Opening Comments, etc.
Mashgiach: Rabbi Wegbreit, Shlita
Rabbi Irom reads a Letter from Jessica Burd
Siyum HaShas for the First Yarhzeit, Rabbi Avraham Berk
Administrator and Financial Director Reb Reuvan Loewenstein
Rabbi Irom reads a Letter from father Mr. Leonard Burd
MC – short talk
Special Surprise Announcement, Rosh Yeshiva: Rabbi Nissim Tagger, Shlita

The following article was printed in the Yated a week and a half ago:

So Far So Fast
The Life and Lessons of Rabbi Gershon Binyamin Burd zt”l
By Sara Yocheved Rigler

When Gregory Burd was born to Russian Jewish parents in Odessa in 1973, he didn’t receive a bris. After the family immigrated to Chicago when he was three, he received the bris, but little else Jewishly. At 16, he was playing on the football team of his local public high school. At 18, he was a lifeguard. Only at the age of 25 did he attend his first Torah class. Yet, when he drowned in the Mediterranean on his 40th birthday two weeks ago, his rosh yeshiva in Yerushalayim tearfully declared, “We didn’t lose just a fellow in the bais medrash. We lost the neshamah of the yeshiva.”

The shivah was a week of surprises. Every day brought a new revelation of chessed that Gershon had hidden from everyone – even his wife. By the end of the week, baffled friends were whispering the word “tzaddik.”

How did Gershon Burd go so far so fast?

His mother Isabella was on her way to the Chicago Torah Network to attend Rabbi Daniel Deutsch’s parsha class before Shavuos in 1998. She invited her son, who was working in his father’s insurance agency, to come along. Greg loved the class so much that he scheduled an appointment to speak to Rabbi Deutsch privately. He brought with him a list of 100 questions.

Three months later, telling his parents, “I have to go learn Torah,” he left for Yerushalayim to study at Yeshiva Ohr Samayach.

“When Gershon discovered Torah,” his mother recounts, “he was like a fish in water. He was very intense.”

A year later, resisting his mother’s entreaties for her only son to come home, he told her, “I’m in kindergarten. I have to learn more.”

A year after that, still learning at Ohr Samayach, he told them, “I’m in first grade. I have to learn more.”

He never returned to Chicago to live.

While Gershon left Chicago, he never left his family. On the phone every morning for fourteen years, Gershon learned with his parents, first Shmiras Halashon, then Pirkei Avos. Due to his influence, every member of his family except one eventually became frum.

At 30, Gershon married Batya Fefer. Six months his junior, Batya also came from a Russian family. Raised in Toronto, by the time she was 24, she was a lawyer for the top corporate tax firm in Toronto. At 26, she came to Israel on a Birthright trip, started learning Torah at EYAHT, and became a baalas teshuvah.

Gershon and Batya had five children, the youngest born just thirteen months ago. The oldest, nine-year-old Yaakov Yehosh- ua, would be the one to say Kaddish for his father.

By the time he married, Gershon was learning at Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah in the Old City of Yerushalayim. Rabbi Shimon Green was the rosh yeshiva. As Batya testifies: “Rabbi Green built Gershon. At Bircas HaTorah, they have a mesorah, a genuine rebbi-to-talmid mesorah, going all the way back to Moshe Rabbeinu. Gershon received that mesorah, in the purest form, from Rabbi Green.”

The mesorah that Gershon wholeheartedly received was to become a soldier, to be what Rabbi Green called a “Yes, sir” Jew, doing whatever is Hashem’s will without personal agendas. According to Rabbi Green, there are no “B” moments; every moment offers an opportunity to do avodas Hashem.

Gershon actualized that ideal several months before his death. For years, he had worked to convince Rabbi Green’s suc- cessor, Rabbi Nissim Tagger, to give a 6:30 a.m. Daf Yomi shiur, Gershon’s only hope of getting through the entire Shas. Finally, to Gershon’s joy, the rosh yeshiva consented and the shiur commenced. One week later, Batya went to speak to the rosh yeshiva. Her last childbirth, a few months before, had been an emergency C-section with complications that kept her bedridden for a long time. She beseeched the rosh yeshiva, “I can’t physically do it. I can’t get the kids off to school in the morning. I need Gershon’s help.” The rosh yeshiva ordered Gershon to drop out of the shiur and stay home in the morning to pack up the children’s sandwiches and walk them to gan and cheder. Batya, consumed with guilt, told Gershon, “I’m so sorry. You worked so hard to get this shiur going.”

Gershon looked at her with consternation. “What are you talking about? This is what I’m supposed to be doing now. This is my avodas Hashem.”

There are no “B” moments.

Soon after joining Bircas HaTorah, Gershon became the menahel of the yeshiva. “The yeshiva was his heart and his life,” recounts Batya. “There was nothing in the world he loved more, except me.” Batya hesitates a moment, then adds: “I’m not even sure which of us he loved more.”

Gershon worked full-time for the yeshivah and learned full-time, three sedorim a day. He was never late to seder and never left early. “I used to ask him,” says Batya, “‘Do you absolutely have to learn the entire, entire day?’ But no matter what I said or did, he never gave up that full-time learning seder.”

Even so, a few days before he passed away, Gershon sent an email to the present rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Nissim Tagger:

“Bli ayin hara, I’ll be 40 in a week and I feel like I really need to severely rededicate myself to learning. It’s true that, boruch Hashem, I’ve made a lot of progress, but I think it’s important to be honest with myself, and really, in many ways, I’m a serious am ha’aretz. I know that there are no tricks or secrets and it is only about hard work. Obviously, I need to prep and do chazarah at night and wake up early and daven tremendously for Hashem’s help.

Is there anything else that the RY can suggest?”

Gershon was the yeshiva’s sole fundraiser (and never took a commission!). When Rabbi Tagger succeeded Rabbi Green three years ago, Gershon said to the new rosh yeshiva, “You learn and teach. I’ll take care of everything else.”

He was responsible to raise the entire yeshiva budget: $600,000 a year.

“It was his job because he chose it,” Batya declares. “He used to be the executive director of the yeshiva. Then he fired himself, hired an executive director, and said, ‘I need to be the fundraiser.’ No one wants to be the fundraiser. People hate people who ask them for money. It’s the worst job in the world. But my husband didn’t care what people thought of him. Friends would ask him, ‘Doesn’t it bother you that people hate being approached by you, that people cringe whenever you come near them, and dodge your phone calls?’

“Gershon would answer, ‘I don’t care. It hurts me that people don’t give with their wallet what they give with their heart and their mouth. People love us with their heart. I want them to love us with their pocket.’ He knew it was a terrible job. How many phone calls he had to make! He had to sit on email for hours, waiting for the green light to go on so he could immediately start chatting with them quickly, because they’re dodging his phone calls and the wife won’t let his phone calls go through. It was a terrible job. But he chose it, because he felt that there was no one else who could do a better job.”

During ten years of marriage, Batya never saw her husband angry, never heard him raise his voice, except one time when someone was trying to squeeze money from the yeshiva.

While Gershon’s devotion to Torah was obvious, his chessed was hidden. On the second day of the shivah, a woman whom Batya knows walked in. As Batya recounts: “She looked at me with this look and said, ‘I’m going to tell you something you don’t know. No one in the world knows this except me and your husband. I was the front for your husband’s tzedakah fund for nine years.”

Batya was clueless. “What tzedakah fund?”

The woman continued: “Your husband came to me with wads of money every month and a list of names. I would call the people and they would come to me to pick up the money. They never knew who it came from.”

Where did Gershon get the money? “I have no idea!” Batya exclaims. “For years we had a crack in the sink that we couldn’t afford to repair, but now it’s coming out that he did so much anonymous chessed.”

For years, Batya has been running “Western Wall Prayers” (www.westernwallprayers.org), a service through which people all over the world can pay to have someone pray for them at the Kosel for 40 days. Not only have hundreds of people received a yeshuah through this segulah, but the money raised supports many bnei Torah in the Old City.

At the shivah, the rosh yeshiva disclosed that Gershon once came to him and asked if it was mutar to give people fake names to pray for. It was a low period for Western Wall Prayers, and Gershon was worried that the people supported could not afford to lose their regular checks. In order to maintain their dignity, he wanted to continue to pay them from his own pocket by giving out fictitious names for which to daven.

When Gershon became aware of couples who were experiencing marital friction, he would surreptitiously pay for therapy sessions for them, with neither the couple nor the therapist aware of who was paying.

Batya once noticed a teenager from a frum family doing something reprehensible. Although Batya barely knew the family, when she next saw Gershon, she told him about it, adding, “It’s not lashon hara, because maybe you can help him.” Gershon did not respond. Many other times, Batya told her husband how distressed she was to see this boy going off the derech. Gershon never responded. Batya assumed that he was too busy and too overburdened to care.

When the mother of this boy paid a shivah call to Batya, she asked her to send her teenage son to be menachem her. Hours later, when the boy arrived, Batya asked him, “Did you know my husband?”

The boy responded, “Sure. He had a halacha chavrusashaft with me.”

Gershon’s devotion to Torah and chessed was matched by his total dedication to growth in middos. His nature was to stand on the black-on-white truth of halacha without caring about personal dispositions or sensitivities. He was intense and unrelenting and never wasted a minute.

His wife had a different disposition, more emotional and laid-back. Returning from a trip to America a few months ago, she announced to her husband, “There are avreichim there whom you know – and respect – who take their families bowling even when it’s not bein hazemanim!”

Gershon sought his rosh yeshiva’s guidance on how to be “more warm and fuzzy” with his wife and children. He took it as an avodah and worked on himself to become the emotionally sensitive husband his wife craved. As part of that avodah, he decided to take a day off on his 40th birthday, Friday, October 4, and take Batya to a beachfront hotel for Shabbos – just the two of them.

The day before, he had sent an email to the rosh yeshiva:
“By the way, I did not have time to mention to the Rosh Yeshiva that regarding my avodah of being more warm and fuzzy (with the kids), Batya said that she had noticed that I was doing better recently… I have been trying harder, Rabbi…”

That afternoon at the hotel, Batya noted that Gershon was relating to her as she had longed for. “He did his tikkun,” she later recounted.

Earlier that day, the rosh yeshiva had sent Gershon this email:
“I am thinking about taking a person with me on this trip. I am not a good shmoozer fundraiser and this trip is about building relationships, etc. Perhaps you should join me.
What do you think?”

An hour before his death, Gershon responded:
“First and foremost, I am more than happy to do anything the RY wants, period. Also, I’m certainly biased and would rather not go as it takes away from family and my learning, but of course I know that it could be the right thing. … I am happy to do whatever the RY wants.”

He had indeed become the soldier, perfectly obedient to Hashem’s will, that Rabbi Green had idealized.

After sending the email, they went to the beach. Gershon’s favorite recreation was to swim in the ocean. With Batya dressed modestly, they did what so many of us frum couples in Israel do. They found an empty stretch of beach, far from the official pritzus-filled beaches, where they could swim together.

Batya, looking at the muddy water, opted to sit on the beach. Gershon plunged into the sea, unknowingly keeping his appointment with the Malach Hamovess. Of course, Gershon, the expert swimmer and trained lifeguard, could handle the waves. The Malach Hamovess had to resort to a different ploy: a rock or large piece of debris struck Gershon on the back of his neck. Knocked unconscious, he was under water for some fifteen minutes before Batya, desperately scanning the sea with her eyes, saw her husband’s body float up toward the beach.

At the shivah, Batya said, “Gershon lived his life with the intensity of a yeshiva bochur davening during the last ten minutes of Neilah.” Did he unconsciously know that his days were numbered?

One last question: Do the rest of us realize that our days, too, are numbered?

This is my rough draft of my submission for my late husband’s memory book, to be distributed at his shloshim (month anniversary after his passing).

Gershon’s yiras shamayim left me constantly humbled. I was married to someone, who on the inside, if he was allowed to fully express himself hashkafically, would have probably sounded a lot like Rav Ovadia Yosef zt”l ironically.

He was a charif Gadol who masked himself constantly as the fun, all-loving, understanding and accepting friend and husband because most of the world was just not playing in the same ballpark as him and so couldn’t handle the level of emmes that he was emanating. It cut like a knife when looking up from a lower angle.

His gadlus (greatness) was being able to so clearly see the emmes and do it, yet hold himself back from expressing his views to others who were not in his league and so would be hurt by his hakpada (strictness).

He lived in a duplicitous world for the sake of shalom (ultimately Hashem’s will). He revealed himself when it was avodas Hashem and masked himself when it was avodas hashem. He attained true self-mastery. When something had to be done, he just did it. He never asked himself how he felt about it, physically or emotionally. If it had to be done, he did it – period. He thought of himself and his body last, unless the mitzvah dictated otherwise.

He was a loving and giving father, a kind and sensitive husband. A constantly growing and expanding person. Outside, he was fearful to ever make a move that would give religious people, and therefore G-d, a bad name. He never cut himself any slack when it came to Torah and mitzvos and middos. But, he was always able to go into the perspective of another person, and not judge them according to his own standards. When it came to disagreements, everything was irrelevant except for what was the right thing for him to do in this situation. Life was a lesson tailored for him to grow and not to teach others how to behave towards him.

He always seems to know everything, to have all the answers and to be silent most of the time unless he was sure that his words would be heard. He never spoke unless it was relevant to the person. His pursuit of Halacha and the exacting emmes felt unprecedented. He didn’t stop until he got to the end. He used every minute, and his ambitions for Torah and personal growth grew each day. I lived in fear of him taking on another peula (function) or learning seder – we were running out of minutes. Somehow he learned to stretch his day and accommodate his ambitions, without taking away what I needed. He was always there to help when I called. He always tried to make me priority number one.

If his personality was not conducive to avodas hashem, he changed it. He thought long and hard about everything he did. He took no shortcuts. He didn’t care about what other people thought unless it was a mitzvah to do so. He calculated every step he took. He sought Rabbinical council constantly and followed. He trusted his own Torah knowledge to lead. He gave his heart and his resources to his family. He gave his soul and his body to G-d.

He was a true eved hashem. He had no agenda other than what was right. Even if the entire frum world would have thought the opposite. His inspiration and foundation for Judaism came initially from Rabbi Deutsch and Ohr Somayach respectively, and his true actualization came from receiving a mesorah and becoming a talmid of Rabbi Green, and Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah to which he dedicated his life.

Rabbi Nebensahl, future Gadol HaDor (leader of our generation) according to many (Hebrew)
Rabbi Tagger, Rosh Yeshiva of Bircas HaTorah (Gershon’s yeshiva) (English)
Rabbi Yom Tov Zilberman (Zilberman’s yeshiva) (Hebrew)
Rabbi Wegbreit (Mashgiach of Bircas HaTorah) (English)

Click here to listen

It was the second day of shiva and I had just woken up to confront a bunch of my girlfriends all at once in my living room. Up until this point, and all the way from the time that my husband was pronounced niftar Sunday morning, I had gone into battle mode. The first call I made in that hospital room when things were final, was to my chinuch Rebbetzin who told me that I needed to be strong for my children so I could break the news to them and be there to console them (this advice was specific to me). My kids also wanted me to take them to the levaya so I had to continue to be strong for them for that. Then my in-laws came and sadly heard the news off the plane, so I wanted to continue to be strong through their initial shock phase. But finally, I woke up that second Shiva day morning feeling it was ok let go and to go into the pain.

My friend, who is very spiritual and was with me at the petirah called to check in while I was sitting. She instinctively knew that it was time for me to experience the worst. I started to go through the entire beach scene play by play with her on the phone and my friends present. It was an intense, deep, dramatic, emotional experience. We both talked it through purposefully until it was finished. And we left it on a very dramatic and unhappy note.

As I cried, I said to her, “you know, I can understand everything (in my own way) except one thing – what is the purpose of trauma? I have an image in my head from that beach that is terrifying and I just can’t get it out of my head. What is the purpose of trauma?”. And she said something shocking.

She said,

“I don’t know”.

I couldn’t believe it. Between her and me we seemed to be able to know everything (in our short-sighted way). There was no answer and a silent infinite pause.

Just then I get a tap on my shoulder from a girl I had never seen before. She drops a card into my lap. She says that she is my sister’s friend who took my three year old for a walk around the old city for a bit. They saw a group of Christian tourists for Israel singing carols so they stopped to look. Then one of the tourists told her that they love Israel. She reached into her purse and gave my three year old a card, instructing him to give it to his mommy.

My sister told me to ignore it, but I said that I needed a comic relief moment and decided to open it.

The card said:

“We as believers of the Bible, we believe in the God of Israel. We came to encourage and to comfort you from Holland. Know that God will give you a double reward for all your sufferings. It is written by the prophet Isaiah 61:7.”

And I felt a huge hug from the other side. Thanks for answering my question Hashem. I still love you Gershon.

I know we all ask this question at some point in our lives. I just wanted to give my take on it, in case it helps anyone. And, if it does, then it helps me. My healing will largely come from having an impact on others I think. Isn’t it funny how Hashem made us all perfect puzzle pieces in this Universe? My healing comes from helping others to come closer.
Is it any wonder that suffering would be my perfect medicine to inspire me to do that which will give me my true soul healing?

Too circular? Let me get to the point.

Today I met a friend who said that my situation made her realize that life is just a long tight rope we walk, never knowing at which point we may fall to the left or right.

I know it was just an impulse statement, but I really feel that I had to respond in a big way.

I do not think that G-d is out to get me and to test me at every corner just to see what I will do.

My soul was put here in a five foot six brunette named Batya, to marry the type of person I did and have the number and type of children I have, etc. so that I will learn the specific lessons that this experience has to give me because my soul still needs correction in those areas before it returns home to a much more beautiful and permanent place. I happen to incorrectly believe that this role is me, because that is part of making it real. Situations, like a death, shock me out of this facade and remind me of my greater journey as a soul in evolution, jumping from classroom to classroom in the hopes that I will truly take the lessons, overcome my tests, grow and truly become G-d-like through them. My soul once needed my husband Gershon in order to grow. Now my soul needs to experience the loss in order to grow properly.

Do I like it?

Of course not. I wish I could hit the fast-forward button on this part of the movie. It is extremely painful. But to make a choice to use this energy of pain to build, to rededicate myself to the service of God, to consciously focus on my blessings rather than my losses, is an eternal gift I will have with me if I succeed. Life is a choice. It is a good choice. If we choose well, we win forever. If we are too weak to do it, we daven for help! But the choice to choose properly is the choice to truly live forever. It is not about what comes to us, it is about who we become as a result.

I love you all. Thanks for being with me during this extremely trying time. I truly feel part of our greater whole.

Have Your Prayers Heard Here for 40 Days!

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Our Succah in Gan Eden

My husband Gershon