Picture This

Friday March 8, 2025/7 Adar 5785/Shabbat Zachor

Parashat Tetzave

Hevre/Friends,

Yesterday Andi and I had the sweetest pleasure of spending time with our adorable, almost-two, great-nephew, Ziv. After building tents out of couch cushions and showing Ziv how to fill the PJ Library tzedaka box that Andi brought him, it was time for Ziv to brush his teeth and get ready for school. Something about seeing him with his cute little toothbrush had me searching my own mental archive of images of my own now-adult four kids crowding the bathroom sink brushing their teeth before school or bedtime. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t conjure any. A zillion other pictures of them as toddlers came to me, but no tooth-brushing. It got me thinking about how certain images, for better or for worse, stay lodged in our memories while others fade. Some we recall because we wish to. Some we recall because we must. I’ve actually been thinking about this the whole week, prompted by a much darker moment: a conversation I had with Ziv’s grandfather, my brother-in-law, Elan.

On my way to the airport last Sunday I called Elan who had just returned from a mission to Israel with CIJA: The Centre for Jewish and Israel Affairs where he serves as Board Chair and leads their mission to protect Canadian Jewish life through advocacy. Sadly, much of their work of late is on the vicious antisemitism Canadian Jews have endured since Oct 7. Elan told me about saying the final Mourner’s Kaddish for his mother, Ida, z”l, while in Israel. 

Last Shabbat he went to shul in Jerusalem, the same shul where Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents daven. When it came time to say Kaddish, three people rose: Elan, another member of the shul, and Jon Polin, Hersh’s father. It was emotional enough to say Kaddish together with Jon. But the experience haunted Elan even more deeply. There he was saying the final Kaddish for his mother who was a hidden child during the Shoah and lost much of her family to the Nazis. Next to him stood Jon saying Kaddish for Hersh, z”l, a victim of another catastrophic assault on the Jewish people that we promised, Never Again. “We failed”, Elan said. “It happened.” I have not been able to get the image of Elan and Jon saying Kaddish together for Ida and Hersh out of my mind; out of my heart.

This Shabbat before Purim (which arrives next Friday) is Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of remembrance, as a special Torah reading commands us to never forget the evil Amalekites who attacked our people as we journeyed in the desert. Haman, the wicked antagonist in the Purim story, is said to be a descendant of Amalek. On the Shabbat before we celebrate a victory over those who dared to try to kill us, we’re summoned to remember the ongoing presence of evil in the world; we’re warned not to become complacent or deluded by our triumphs.

What the Torah tries to accomplish with words, our generation sadly must once again pledge to achieve with the trove of images and videos from Oct 7 and beyond: of homes torched; civilians taken captive; innocents murdered; families shattered.

To that trove I add not just the image of Elan and Jon saying Kaddish together. I add the image of beautiful, innocent, smiling Ziv, toothbrush in hand: the promise of the Jewish future. 

Zachor. Remember. Never forget.  Never again. 

Again.

With continued prayers for our ability to bring home all the hostages, protect the soldiers, heal the injured, comfort the bereaved, and build a lasting peace in Israel and around the world, and with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom,

Dini

Photo Courtesy of Ronen Avisror