Eyes to See

It started with a question.

“Will you write a book about Zaidy?”

My mother sat in the hammock in our country house in Tannersville. Tears whispered down her cheeks. She clutched the phone tightly.

“Write a book about Zaidy. Before he’s gone.”

I stared at her. “When he’s__”

“Gone,” she repeated. “I just spoke to Jeanie. The doctor gives him six months. We need to hold onto him for longer.”

I waited until she had gone back into the house. Curled myself up in the green hammock.

Suddenly I was no longer a 25-year-old mother of one, but a six-year-old child tumbling with my seven siblings into my grandparents’ low rise house in New Orleans. Zaidy meets us at the door, opening his arms wide and we rush laughing into his arms, fighting over who gets to pull his blue suspenders, waiting to hear that delightful ping as it bounces against his generously sloping stomach.

“Attention,’ he says with a trace of his army training, “welcome to our home. Now, all “ch” children on the right, and all “non-ch” children on the left.” We form haphazard lines, Yudi, Lakey, Raizy, Shneur on one side, Chaya, Rochel, Menachem and me on the other. We laugh at his pronunciation. It amazes me that after twenty years of having a baal teshuva daughter and eight frum grandchildren, he still has a hard time pronouncing my name. “Hami,” he says, “Come sit on my lap.” I snuggle up against him. I don’t have to say anything. He doesn’t try to make me talk when I feel like observing, never tells me that big girls don’t suck their thumbs, never asks me why I looked so sad like all the other grownups love to do.

I ask him why people think I look sad. “You have beautiful eyes,” he says looking into mine. “They are deep brown with flecks of green. You have thinking eyes.” He pats me on the head. “With your thinking head and your thinking eyes, you can do just about anything.”

I look into his eyes so similar to mine and smile.

Visits to New Orleans are a small wonderland, where we camp on the living room floor, jump on the beds as much as we want and take a trip to Toys R Us to buy the toy of our choice.
“Thanks for coming,” my grandfather says as we leave, stuffing a twenty into my hand. “Buy yourself something you want and don’t need.”

My family visited my grandparents every year. After I got married, I continued the visits with my husband and then my baby. I had spoken to my grandfather a few months before.
“I wish I could visit,” I said wistfully.
“Why don’t you?” he asked. “Do what’s best for you, but I would love to see you soon.”
I was noncommittal. It was too hard to bring my active two-year-old into the senior complex my grandparents lived in, and I would have to travel without my husband.

“I’m just going to have to wait until you come here,” I said. When I hung up I tried to erase the uneasy feeling of disappointment I had sensed in Zaidy’s voice when I told him I wasn’t coming.

I hunched closer to myself in the hammock. Wondered if the obstacles I had felt so insurmountable really couldn’t have been worked out. Wondered if Zaidy had sensed something was wrong and I had ignored his cues.


I thought of my mother’s idea. To gather the threads of my grandfather’s life, weave it into a narrative, and memorialize him. I didn’t feel capable of the project. I thought of my grandfather encouraging me to write. The writing pieces I’d emailed to him. His emailed responses were short and succinct in his signature style, but he always gently pushed me to write more.
“I think you write wonderfully,” he told me on more than one occasion. “Any time you want to take formal training, the money is there.” I was hesitant to tell him when I’d found a course that cost several hundred dollars. His emailed response was instantaneous. I’m sending out a check today. Enjoy your course.

He’d believed in me enough to pay for my writing. Here was an opportunity to finally repay him.

Zaidy loved the idea of the book. I was scared of the challenge and relieved when he vetoed a phone interview. My slightly mumbled Brooklyn accent was difficult enough for him to understand in person, and at age eighty-seven his hearing was very poor. Logistically it seemed too difficult to visit for a long enough time to gather information.

A hurricane warning blew my grandparents my way. They arrived winded and out of breath from their hurried escape.

Zaidy walked in practically on tiptoes, unsteady on his feet.
“Neuropathy,” he said in response to our questioning looks. “It’s hard for me to walk. I can’t feel my feet making contact with the ground.”

He looked small inside his dress shirt and suit, having come directly from his office to the airport.

I could overhear Bubby talking to my sister in the next room. “Glad you got out on time,” said Mushky. “I guess after almost not making it out of town before Hurricane Katrina, you weren’t taking any chances.”

“Yeah,” said Bubby vaguely. “It was a long flight.”

“Why are we here?” she asked a moment later. “There was a hurricane warning, Bubby,” Mushky said patiently.

“I’ll be darned,” Bubby opened and closed her purse, rifling through her wallet trying to find something familiar. “I knew that, I just forgot.”

“It kills me to see her like this.” Zaidy made his way to the couch, sighing heavily. “I’m not sure what will get me first, her dementia or the cancer.”


The predicted hurricane never happened; instead we had a whirlwind of interviews.

My mother manned the camera and I typed as he spoke. My siblings gathered around. Zaidy sat hunched in our maroon rocking chair, rocking as he went back into time, his green eyes rheumy and clouded behind his large plastic glasses.

He talked about his years in medical school. When I edged the conversation towards his childhood he evaded the questions.

After three days of interviews he called me into the living room. “Chamie,” he said haltingly. “I’ve been avoiding talking about my childhood for a reason. There is so much trauma and pain that I wanted to protect you. I need to tell you though, because if you want to really know me, you need to know about my childhood.”

“I can handle it. I want to know as much as you’re willing to say.”

Zaidy adjusted his chair, placing a small cushion behind his back. “My first memory is at the age of three, running through my cramped New Orleans home, hanging onto my mother’s skirt, and stopping short at the sight of my papa lying dead on the floor, a bullet wound in his head.”

I stopped typing to look at Zaidy. He was in another world.

“The event was so horrific I blocked it from my mind. My mother blocked it from her mind as well, and papa was never mentioned in the house. I grew up feeling there was something horribly wrong with me, that I didn’t have a father. My mother wanted to protect me, to ensure I would never leave her like my father did. I was her baby and she held me tight.”

He then added that if there had been an Olympic award given for low self-esteem, he would have won it.

His light quip sent out a clear message. Sympathy and pity were not welcome. I typed instead, barely paying attention to my fingers, my gaze following Zaidy.

Inside though, my thoughts were churning. I hadn’t known about his early childhood trauma, didn’t know the fears and anxieties that plagued him. I had only known the kind, sensitive, highly successful psychiatrist, always ready with a funny quip, delighting in being the center of attention.

My grandfather’s life was ending.

And I was just beginning to understand him, I thought. To really know him as he allowed me to enter into his hidden past.


“If you could give your children and grandchildren one final message what would it be?” I asked.

“Just do it,” he said.

I stared at him. “Zaidy, just do what?”

Zaidy smiled. “First I’ll tell you a story and then I’ll explain. Remember the swimming pool in our yard before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina?

I nodded.

“Well, I don’t know if you know this but there was a time I was terrified to swim. That changed when your Uncle Larry was six years old and we were at a neighbor’s swimming party. When Larry begged me to play in the water and I refused because I was afraid to swim, he said ‘Don’t worry Dad, I’ll catch you!’ He imitated Larry’s sweet high voice.

“The next day I hired a swimming instructor. I started babbling about my overprotective mother, stifled childhood and years of psychotherapy. He interrupted me with a casual, ‘Just get in the water Doc. No one learns how to swim by talking.”
It was a pivotal moment in overcoming my fear and in my psychiatry career. Talking and analyzing could give insight into life, but true change came from just doing it.”

“Did you learn how to swim?”, a neighbor asks. Stopping by to borrow some eggs, she was drawn into the story.

Zaidy smiled. “I learned how to swim the width of the Olympic sized pool in Tulane University. The day I swam across, the entire swim team stood around and applauded. I built a pool in my backyard to celebrate the victory over a lifelong fear and that night I created a ‘Just do it’ list.”

“What was on your list?”
“Most are too private to share,” he said mischievously, “but I’ll share a few. They included public speaking, ballroom dancing, running a 10k race, and acting.”

“Acting,” I interrupted. “You love to act- you always flew in to act in my father’s puppet show videos and you played a part in ‘West Side Story’.”

“Yes,” said my grandfather. “And I was so afraid of forgetting my lines, I planned that if I started to mess up, I would fall onto the floor pretending to have a heart attack. The play would be ruined but at least I wouldn’t be embarrassed! I did fine though; in fact I got more applause than the lead part because so many of my group therapy patients showed up to give me a standing ovation.”

Zaidy looked so happy remembering what he called his finest hour. I couldn’t bear to think of the time when I wouldn’t be able to laugh and share and talk with Zaidy again.

I mentally shrugged off the pain. Zaidy continued talking.

“It took me three years to cross off the thirty-six things on my list, but I did them all despite the fear. And that is my message to you all. Write your own list and just do it despite your fear.”

There were new surprises every day. The more my grandfather bared his soul, the more our bond intensified and deepened. He had achieved success by most standards with a loving marriage and family, flourishing career, and acclaim in the psychiatric community. Underneath though, he had battled the same twin demons of despair and insecurity plaguing me.

The hurricane warning over, Bubby and Zaidy returned to New Orleans, leaving me with pages and pages of interview notes.

I arranged the information into chapters. I spent hours googling the cheapest way to produce and copy the book. Emails were sent out to every member of the family asking them to write a letter sharing their favorite memories and life lessons learned from Zaidy. Wikipedia became my favorite source for researching information about New Orleans in the early nineteen hundreds. I hired a graphic designer. In fact I did everything but sit and write the story of his life.

There wasn’t time to wait out writer’s block. I was fighting a ticking clock guzzling hours and days of Zaidy’s life while I procrastinated.

“Nechamie, I’ll be happy to help you edit anytime you want,” my mother said seeing me sitting for hours in front of the computer.

“I haven’t written anything yet.” I pounded the computer keys harder than I intended.

“This job is too hard for me. I can’t do this. You’ll have to find someone else.”

Mommy got serious. “Nechamie, you have to do it. Zaidy asks me for updates every time I speak to him. I’ve never seen him want something so much.”

I called a mentor for help.

“I can’t do this,” I finally broke down in tears. “It’s the final goodbye. I write this book and that’s it, it’s the end. I somehow feel if I can just push off writing this book, I will push off his death.”

“Then don’t write it like an obituary,” my mentor said. “Write it as a celebration of his life.”

I thought back to the gleam in Zaidy’s eyes when he spoke his stories. The laughing and crying our family had shared as he told his stories. The energy that would flow into him as he reviewed his life, instead of sitting apathetically on the couch, thinking about death.

Perhaps the book was making him live.

Perhaps I could present him with a small slice of eternity by capturing some of his soul on paper.



I then wrote as if possessed, writing for five or six hours a day. I started with a short prayer. “Hashem,” I said. “I don’t have time to make this perfect. Please help me get it right the first time and let the words flow on their own accord.”

Two months later I visited my grandfather with a sizeable packet of writing. My mother babysat my little son, while I spent precious hours with Zaidy reviewing the material for accuracy. The cancer was eating away at him; we no longer took leisurely walks around the park discussing everything from psychology to music to the daily news. He fought to keep his eyes open, pausing frequently to let the pain and nausea wash over him before continuing. A yellowish tinge crept into his skin and for the first time in his life, he refused the cheesecake I brought to snack on.

The cheesecake didn’t taste nearly as good eaten alone.

In his good moments he told me more stories of his life. Sometimes we sat silently holding hands. When he was sleeping, I spent hours crouched on the floor searching through eight decades of pictures, letters and memories in the old cedar chest.

The book enabled me to ask him personal questions. How are you affected as your wife of sixty years begins to vanish and is replaced by the ghost of Alzheimer’s? Is there anything you regret? Are you afraid to die?

He wasn’t afraid he said. He had lived a good life without regrets. He was ready to let go of this world.

I wasn’t ready to let go of him.



Erev Pesach, while most women were scrubbing floor tiles and banishing chometz, I was adding the last editorial touches, calling the graphic designer every ten minutes and scanning pictures.

“Zaidy’s doing pretty well,” my aunt said when I told her I wished I had more time to make the book even better. “It doesn’t look like his death is imminent. I think you have time if you want to do further revisions.”

Instinct told me otherwise. Minutes after sending the file to the printer, only two hours before Pesach, my mother received a call from her sister.

“Zaidy’s doing really badly,” she said. “We don’t know if he’ll make it through the week.”

I cried for two days. Begged Hashem, promised anything for Zaidy to live long enough to see the book completed. Felt an exultant sense of release after the first two days of Yom Tov passed and Zaidy was somewhat better. The doctor said he was holding on. Waiting for something.

The printer rushed the job, sending me a bound copy of the book that arrived the day after Pesach.

Two days later I was on my way to New Orleans. I traveled alone, holding only the book. I couldn’t stop looking at it. My grandfather’s smiling face was on the cover, with two hundred pages of text, interviews with his patients, pictures, and letters of love from friends and relatives.

It was hard to see Zaidy’s deterioration. His skin sagged, his legs thin in the good pants he insisted on wearing. A sallow yellow color dominated his face and whites of his eyes. One eye closed of its own accord.

“Chamie,” he said, voice raspy from medication. “So good to see you. I’m so glad you came.”

I handed him the book, relief at finishing the book in time tinged with sadness that I was finished, wondering if I had done him justice. He read it alone in his room.
“It’s hard to read,” he said later. “It has all the people and the life I’m going to miss when I’m gone.”


He took my hand into his. “When I was younger, I dreamed of being famous one day and having a book written about my life. I even thought of the title.” He squeezed my hand. “I never dreamed I would have my own personal biographer.”

I stroked the book cover. “Zaidy, I finally thought I could do something for you, but you ended up giving me the greater gift. The gift of knowing you.”

Years ago Zaidy had given me the gift of seeing myself with different eyes. Now he had given me his final gift of seeing him with different eyes.

Two days later, Zaidy went into a coma. He passed away six days later.

Before he died though, he asked me for a pen. With his limited energy he inscribed my book.
To my beloved granddaughter Chamie,
You found more in me than I knew was there.
Love Zaidy.


Thanks to Ruchama, Ephraim and Jeanie for their help!

Book Excerpts

The following are two excerpts from the book I recently wrote about my grandfather, Dr. Alvin Cohen, may he rest in peace. The idea for the book was conceived when he received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Wanting to preserve his memories and life story, I spent many hours interviewing him and rewriting the interviews in story form. Besides for being one of my most favorite people, my grandfather did a tremendous amount for me. Writing his life story and presenting it to him in a professionally typeset and bound book was the first time I could do something for him. The book was completed one week before my grandfather passed away.

Dieting Mania

Spending hours sitting on a chair listening to my psychiatric patients talk, took a toll on my weight. I thought back longingly to the days in the Army when I was too underweight to be drafted into the navy. I meditated for a long time trying to figure out where all the excess weight was coming from. I ate a light breakfast of toast and coffee, almost no lunch, and several portions of whatever was served for dinner. Wandering around the kitchen late one night, a handful of potato chips in one hand, and bottle of beer in the other, I hit upon the solution. It was the late night munching, the handful of this and the handful of that, which was causing the pounds to start climbing and the needle on the scale to start rising.

I rushed into the living room to share my epiphany with Ruth. She was in the living room folding laundry, while she watched her favorite T.V. show. “Ruth, Ruth,” I called out. “I’ve just figured out the secret to my weight gain, and the absolutely perfect way to lose it!”

Ruth looked up with a modicum of interest. “Yeah, what is it?”

I was bursting with enthusiasm. “It’s like this. I realized that it’s the second supper I eat that is causing all the pounds to pile up. So we’re not going to eat dinner at home. Every night we’re going to go to a different restaurant. A restaurant is the ultimate in portion control!”

Ruth’s eyes were already straying back to the T.V. “Whatever you’d like Alvin. Which one do you want to go to tomorrow?”

I was warming up to this plan. “I don’t want to have long arguments each night, about which restaurant we’re going to. Let’s just go to Veterans Highway—that street is lined with restaurants—and just go to them in order.”

It was a few months into my new diet and things were going great. I had dropped a few pounds, because when I came home from the restaurant, there were no seconds of dinner to eat, and as per my request, the cupboards and fridge were bare.

As usual, I parked the car, and Ruth and I walked to the next restaurant in line. But this time things didn’t go according to The Plan. Ruth took one look at the restaurant. “I’m not going into this restaurant,” she said, “it’s filthy.”

I peered inside the window. It was hard to see inside because the glass could use a bit of a wash. She was right. It was a little dirty. But rules were rules.

“We can’t go anywhere else,” I said firmly. “We make an exception tonight, and that will be the end. Every night we’ll have endless arguing about where to go.”

“Alvin, that’s ridiculous,” she said. “This restaurant is dirty. I couldn’t care less about what kind of food we eat each night, as long as it’s clean. I promise you, I’m not going to start arguing each night.”

I stood firm though, and eventually Ruth acquiesced. The food was terrible, the service even worse, and that night Ruth got sick with agonizing stomach pains. That was the end of the Veterans Highway diet.

My next diet was the monotony diet. I figured that if I ate the same food every single night for dinner, I would eventually get sick of it, and eat less and less each night. So for weeks on end, I would eat only tuna fish, hamburgers or gefilta fish. When gefilta fish was the food of choice, I would go to the local store and buy a new jar every few days. As I placed the jar of Manischewitz gefilta fish balls on the counter, the cashier remarked, “It’s funny, we never used to sell much of this gefilta fish. But recently, we have sold so much of it. I guess it’s really gotten popular!” I didn’t bother informing the sweet blonde cashier that the only one buying all this gefilta fish was none other than me.


My last resort at dieting was to pay my kids fifty cents—a princely sum—every time one of them caught me eating after dinner. If I would just avoid the fridge and stay out of the kitchen, I could have saved myself a lot of money. But I had a compulsion that kept on sending me to that fridge again and again. After a few weeks of paying out substantial sums of money, I got smart. I started sneaking into the kitchen when everyone was sleeping and helping myself to the fridge contents. One night I crept out of bed as usual after everyone was asleep and softly padded into the kitchen. Just as my hand was reaching into the pot of cold pasta, suddenly all four of my kids, Jeanie, Diane, Lisa and Larry, jumped out from the corners of the kitchen. “Caught you Dad!” they announced gleefully. “We caught you!” And they stuck out their hands, “fifty cents please.” And that was the end of the Pay-Food diet.

It became a lot easier to just buy my clothes one size bigger.

I’ll Catch You Dad!

I sat in the humid, sultry heat of the New Orleans summer, alone. Around me, young girls and boys and their parents were splashing in the huge pool of my friend. Usually at pool parties I had the company of one of my friends who was almost as terrified of water as I was, but this time, my friend had thrown caution to the winds, and jumped into the water. He kept beckoning to me, trying to induce me to join the fun, but I just shook my head and smiled in refusal. But just then my six year old son called out to me. “Hey Dad,” Larry called out. “This is so much fun! Come in with me.”

I went closer to the pool where Larry was splashing merrily and playing with his friends. “I can’t come in.” I said embarrassed. “I don’t know how to swim.”

“Don’t worry Dad,” Larry said, his deep blue eyes staring intently into mine.
“Just jump in. I’ll catch you!”

I turned away so Larry wouldn’t see the tears that had sprung to my eyes at his heartfelt declaration. Those words penetrated to the depths of my heart.
I never was able to escape the fear that I wasn’t being a good enough father for my son. My son’s words brought all my fears and insecurities to the surface. I wanted my son to be able to depend and rely on me; not for him to assume the role of my protector, touching as it was.

The very next day I went to Tulane University and hired Bob, one of the college students on the swim team, to teach me how to swim. I looked in dread at the huge Olympic sized pool. “Listen,” I told Bob. “I just want to tell you a little bit about why I’m doing this. You see, my father died when I was three and as a result my mother was very overprotective. You can say that I never had a real childhood, she never let me do anything and she made me believe that if I would step foot into the water, I would certainly drown…”

Bob interrupted my nervous monologue. “Doc, you’re not going to learn a thing from talking. Just get into the water!”

It took many weeks to overcome my fear and learn the rudiments of swimming. When I finally swam across the width of the Olympic size pool, I climbed out, triumphant with what I had accomplished. That’s when I suddenly heard the sound of resounding applause. The entire swimming team of Tulane University was clapping and cheering for my achievement. I hadn’t noticed that they had watched my struggle week by week to conquer my fear; now they were expressing sincere admiration.

I celebrated my achievement by building a pool in my backyard. I was very specific with the contractor I hired. The dimensions were unusual and specific- the length of my pool was precisely the size of the width of the Olympic size pool I had learned in.

The many hours I had spent in psychotherapy had made me very aware of why I was stifled and afraid of the world. It was those few words “Just get into the water” that made the biggest impact on me. I learned that action is the essential thing.

Light from the Darkness

Rivka Holtzberg never intended to be a modern-day Jewish heroine. She lived her life simply in Mumbai, India, surmounting incredible daily difficulties to live the life she had chosen as Chabad emissary. Her reward was the satisfaction of one Jew at a time, taking on one mitzvah at a time. For her, that was worth everything she endured. Modest and unassuming, with an ever-present smile lighting up her face, she would have been happy to spend the rest of her life in the sweltering, disorderly India. Instead, her name has become a household word, her example held up by women around the world since she and her husband Gavriel were murdered at their post, when terrorists stormed Nariman House on November 26, leaving their two-year-old son Moshe crying “Ima” at the funeral of both his parents.

The heady smells of turmeric, fenugreek, and cumin, and other less pleasant odors, would assault Rivka Holtzberg as she navigated her way through the narrow winding streets, crammed with tiny jewelry and tailor shops, on her way to the open-air market. She needed to walk carefully, to avoid stepping on the old men and woman lying in the gutter starving, the untethered goats nibbling at piles of garbage, and the cows venerated by the people.

Her pale skin and western dress were out of place among the dark-skinned Indians mostly wearing saris, carrying their purchases on their heads, but being different didn’t faze Rivka. She was here to spread light in the darkness of Mumbai, India, to feed the bodies and souls of the searching Israeli backpackers.

She would stand in the kitchen in her Chabad house, working cheerfully with her small Indian staff as she cleaned and plucked 200 chickens each week and baked hundreds of loaves of bread, preparing fresh breakfast and a full dinner buffet each night for the thirty or forty travelers that might stop by. She would serve 800 meals a week, and refused to accept payment from her guests.

"They were magnets," said Rabbi Yosef Chaim Kantor, the Chabad shaliach in Bangkok, Thailand. "When you were with them, you felt like you were in a different time and space. That is why people loved coming to be with them. Their home was an oasis in Mumbai."

Rivka spent a great deal of her day cooking, related Efraim Nass, a long-time visitor to the Chabad house in Mumbai. But whenever people came to the Chabad house, she would stop whatever she was doing and run to greet them. "What would you like to do first?" she would ask, "Rest, wash up or eat?" If they were shy and demurred, she would simply show them to the computer room, where they could access the internet in a Jewish environment. She would offer to do their laundry and would place a heaping plate of food in front of them. While she showed her guests around, she spoke to them, getting to know them and figuring out how she could best help them. Her guests returned her warmth and confided in her, talking with her late into the night.

She had a quip for everyone. "You're too skinny," she laughingly told one woman. "I can't just make you two eggs. You need to eat at least three." And she went into the kitchen to whip up a fresh batch of scrambled eggs.

Rivka didn’t only take care of the guests who came to her Chabad house. She would bring packages of food to Jewish women in prison and spend time visiting them. If someone called and said they needed food and did not know how to find her Chabad house, she would immediately pack them a box of food, and send it by taxi, no questions asked.

Rivka hosted a minimum of fifty to sixty guests every Shabbos. Many would find their way to their door, having found out about the warm hospitality through word of mouth. But Rivka and Gavriel weren't content with that. Gavriel would make the rounds of all the hotels and hostels frequented by travelers and ask to see the guest book. He would then call the room numbers of all the names that sounded Jewish and invite them for the Shabbos meal.

Gavriel would return home triumphant. "Rivka, we're going to be having seventy guests for Shabbos," he would announce. Rivka would smile broadly at the thought of all the guests, but question her husband about where he had gone, making sure he hadn't left any hotels or hostels out. She was not content unless she was sure that every effort had been made to reach every Jew in Mumbai. Although she could have easily used Gavriel's help, she would encourage him to go out again and bring home even more guests.

The Holtzberg’s Shabbos table was the highlight of the week. Gavriel and Rivka were eager to create a communal feeling among the diverse group of backpackers, businessmen, ex-convicts, diplomats, and diamond dealers. “Gavriel insisted that everyone go around the table and say a few words to the group, giving guests four options: either delivering words of Torah, relating an inspirational story making a commitment to take on a mitzvah, or leading a song,” said Benjamin Holzman, a frequent guest of the Holtzbergs’.

Hillary Lewin, a Yeshiva University graduate who spent five weeks with the Holtzbergs in Mumbai, related that Rivka once told her that there was one holiday where they had no guests. It was just Rivka, Gavriel and Moishie. “I expected her to say how relieved she was not to have guests, but she told me it was, in fact, the only lonely holiday they ever spent in India.”

She also relates that, “On my last Shabbat in India, I slept in Rivka and Gavriel’s home, the fifth floor of the Chabad house. I noticed that their apartment was dilapidated and bare. They had only a sofa, a bookshelf, a bedroom for Moishie, and a bedroom to sleep in. The paint peeled from the walls, and there were hardly any decorations. Yet the guest quarters on the two floors below were decorated exquisitely, with American-style beds, expansive bathrooms, air conditioning (a luxury in India), and marble floors. The juxtaposition of their home to the guest rooms was just another example of what selfless, humble people Rivka and Gavriel were. They were more concerned about the comfort of their guests than their own.”

There were no shortcuts in Mumbai. Rivka could never decide that this week would be a lazy one and cut corners by buying ready-made food. There was nothing ready-made in India. Milk needed to be brought from a farm and boiled, chickens needed to be slaughtered, spices were brought fresh and dried and ground by hand, and flour needed to be sifted before it could be made into homemade bread and cake. These were tasks that Rivka did willingly, day in and day out, with a smile on her face.

"In all the five years that I visited — and I was there often — I never once saw Rivka get angry," related Efraim Nass. "Every bone in her body spoke kindness, and she lived for that purpose. She was giving 24/7, 365 days a year. I think she accomplished far more in her twenty-eight years than many people accomplish in seventy or eighty years."

He remarked that Rivka’s voice seemed to be perpetually hoarse, probably from lack of sleep and overexertion. She was up from early in the morning to late at night, constantly tending to the needs of the people there. Her only relaxation was to speak on the phone to friends and her family in Israel.

Rivka Holtzberg's uncle, Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, compared the couple's work to that of our forefather Abraham. "Like him, you built a hospitality center," he said, "not for yourselves, but so that any Jew could enter and find a warm place. How many times have I heard Israelis say they went to India to find themselves, and they found a mother and father — Gavriel and Rivka."

Our modern-day heroine brought light where before there was only darkness. The forces of evil and darkness snuffed out her life, but her good deeds will always be remembered and perpetuated, just as the miracle of Chanukah is never forgotten.

Although Chanukah is associated with the pure light of the gleaming menorah, it was preceded by a darkness that seemed never-ending. Daily, Jews went to their deaths for trying to keep Torah and mitzvos. Women continued to bear children and secretly circumcise them, knowing that if caught, mother and newborn child would be thrown from the city walls. There was Chana's anguished cry to G-d as she stood over the bodies of her seven slain sons. To save the Jewish people, Yehudis, a noble and pure woman, had to put her innocence in dire danger.

Darkness everywhere. Anguish marring the noble faces of the Jewish nation as the angels cried out, "Zu Torah v’zu s’chorah – is this Torah and its reward?" looking at a world that had gone black. Yet, from the depths of the pain and the suffering, the Chanukah lights spread their warmth. The seeming senseless suffering and tragic sacrifices of the Jewish men and woman became shining lights of heroism, lighting up the tapestry of Jewish history with their greatness.

Almost two weeks after the unfathomable tragedy that claimed the life of his parents, Moishie Holtzberg has begun to smile. He is his mother's child, who was able to smile even in midst of dealing with the Tay-Sachs that claimed the life of her oldest son and left another critically ill in a palliative care facility in Israel. Despite everything, she was always able to keep on giving. Moishie’s heart-wrenching cries for his parents still occasionally fill the air, but by smiling and playing, Moishie is unwittingly carrying on his mother's legacy of transcending pain.

Rivka and Gavriel's murders darkened an already bitter exile. But in the past week alone, thousands of lights have begun to twinkle as a result of the darkness. Thousands of women have begun to light Shabbos candles; men, women, and children have taken on extra mitzvos; new Chabad centers have been established in their honor. And of course, the Chabad House in Mumbai is being rebuilt, meals are being served, and minyanim are being held at a different, nearby location in the meantime.

Rivka left family, friends, and a comfortable life to live in Mumbai for one purpose only: to bring the light of Judaism to those who had not yet experienced its warmth. And even with her death, the love and kindness she spread in her lifetime continue to ripple and spread, as thousands are drawn closer to Judaism because of the tragedy. If we find the strength and goodness within ourselves to truly and graciously welcome the next guest who comes into our home, and to fill his or her needs as Rivka did, we honor her in the best way possible, as she would want.

Like the Chanukah lights which came from the intense darkness, the light of Rivka and Gavriel continues to spread.

The Rebbe and the Child

“Mommy, why is that lady over there crying?”

My mother put her finger to her lips. “Shh Nechamie, not so loud. If anyone can help her stop crying, it will be the Rebbe.”

I was glad I was wearing my nicest shabbos dress with the pink flowers and lace. The girl in front of me was wearing a denim skirt that didn’t cover her knees, with clunky purple earrings hanging to her shoulders. I guessed her mother hadn’t told her that she must wear her nicest clothing to the Rebbe. I looked at the hundreds of people standing in a line that took up the whole block, and felt like yelling out, “It’s my birthday. I’m going to be six today!”

It felt like forever, but the line slowly moved forward. As we got closer, Mommy started telling me what to say. “Nechamie, tell the Rebbe that heint is mine yom huledes.” The words sounded strange on my tongue. We never spoke Yiddish at home. “Ma, why can’t I just tell the Rebbe that today is my birthday in English. It’s too hard for me to say.”

“Just try. I’ll practice with you.” She said, patting my hand reassuringly. “Now after you tell the Rebbe that it’s your birthday, he will probably give you a brocho in Yiddish. Even if you don’t understand, just say amein.”

As the line snaked slowly towards 770, I practiced the unfamiliar Yiddish words over and over again, “heint is my yum holedus.” I didn’t want to mess up. As I hopped from one foot to another, I chanted to myself, just say Amein, just say Amein.

Finally we arrived at the big ornate brown door, and walked down a long hallway. “It’s so quiet.” I whispered to my mother.

I craned my neck to look ahead. There was a man videoing everyone who went by and someone snapping pictures with his camera. A big lady with a curly brown shaitel and big green glasses, was quickly pushing people along. I was glad that I was too short for them to reach me. I didn’t want to be pushed.

I stared at the Rebbe as I approached. He had a white square beard. I didn’t know anyone with such a white beard. My father’s beard was black and my grandpa didn’t have a beard. I wondered how the Rebbe could stand so many hours. My feet were already hurting and pinched from the patent leather shoes I was wearing.

I stared at the Rebbe’s face curiously. He must have been very old, but he didn’t have any wrinkles like my grandma had. He had such nice blue eyes. I liked his eyes. Mine were plain and boring brown.

Finally it was my turn. I stood in front of the Rebbe. He handed me a dollar in my right hand, and then he looked straight at me, and listened as I pronounced the words I had practiced so carefully. “Heint is mine yom huledes." The Rebbe bent down, so he could look me in the eye.
“Are you making a party?” he asked in his thick Yiddish accent.

“Amein,” I said, as I looked proudly at my mother for approval. She tried signaling something to me, but I didn’t understand what she wanted.

The Rebbe bent down and repeated the question another two times. “Are you making a party?”

“Amein!” I spoke a little louder this time, thinking that the Rebbe hadn’t heard me.
The Rebbe bent down a little lower.

“Are you making a party? He repeated patiently.
This time I heard the words- “Yes, yes,” I said, happily, pigtails bouncing. “I’m making a big party for all my friends.”

The Rebbe smiled, and handed me another dollar. I smiled back, staring at those wonderful blue eyes, before I was swept away by the big lady wearing the curly shaitel and big green glasses.

Beautifully Me

My wedding day was the first time I looked into the mirror without flinching. “Nechamie, you’re beautiful,” my new husband Pinchas said. I almost believed him. But that night, after the reception, the glamour faded away. I took out the hair pins and the black curls cascading against the shining tiara, fell in haphazard messiness around my narrow face. The beauty melted away in stages, as I washed off each layer of meticulously applied makeup. The smooth clear skin, thick luxuriant eyelashes, gently blushing cheeks, and rich red smile, was torn away. My ordinary face with its bright red spots littering my skin, small deep set brown eyes, scraggly eyebrows and long narrow nose lay exposed.

I turned away from the mirror. I was ugly. I could temporarily hide behind a mask of makeup, pretending that one day I would finally reach a universal standard of beauty. Or I could accept reality and make the best of it. My husband had somehow seen beyond the plainness of my looks into the depths of my soul and I would have to learn to do the same.

Truth be told, I had avoided mirrors since childhood. I wasn’t skinny enough, tall enough, pretty enough. When I went to social events, I would watch all the people standing around, smiles on their beautifully made up faces. Happy couples would stand in all corners of the social hall, joy and love of life radiating from their glowing faces. Only I was alone. Only I was stuck in a body I couldn’t stand, with a face I hated to look at.

Here among the Hassidim where I grew up, the soul received a lot of attention. The body was important only as a setting for the precious diamond of the soul. But the beauty of the soul wasn’t enough for me. Of course I wanted to be respected for intelligence, competence and depth. But I also wanted to be beautiful.

It took an excruciating headache, trip to the emergency room, and anaphylactic allergic reaction to change my worldview.

“You have a urinary tract infection,” the doctor informed me, as I lay prone on the narrow leather table in the emergency room cubicle. “I think that the agonizing headaches you’ve been experiencing, the stiffness in the neck and back, and viral symptoms are all stemming from this infection.”

I sighed with relief. My primary care physician had suspected meningitis and sent me to Beth Israel Hospital for a spinal tap. I could handle an infection though. That was something easily cured.

As the nurse left the room after setting up the flow of antibiotics, she casually added as an afterthought. “Sometimes people have a small reaction to the antibiotics. Just let us know if you do.”

“What kind of reaction?” I asked worriedly.

“Oh, it’s no big deal,” she responded. “Just a little itching.”

I leaned back against the hard leather table and tried to get some rest. The steady drip of the antibiotic reassured me. The pain racking my body for the past 36 hours would soon be gone.

“Everything’s going to be ok,” I whispered to Pinchas. He squeezed my hand tightly. “Thank G-d, it’s not meningitis. I was so worried.”

But then I started to feel a strange sensation in my lower lip. It felt dry and acidic. Seconds later it began to swell.

“Pinchas, notice anything different about my lip?” I turned to him anxiously.

“Looks normal to me,” he said. But a minute later, his eyes widened in shock.

“Your face…it’s blowing up…” he said as he ran out of the room to call a doctor.

The doctor quickly shut off the offending medication.

“Guess you’re allergic to Cipro,” he said. “The nurse will give you Benadryl. I’ll be around if you need me.”

As the nurse gave me Benadryl, I suddenly felt something in my throat close. It was if a valve in my throat had suddenly shut. I bolted upright and began coughing violently trying to get air into my throat. Pinchas jumped when he saw me sit up so suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. I tried to tell him but I could not get the words out. I clutched my throat tightly, and the words screamed in my head, “Help me, I can’t breathe!”

Summoned by the nurse, the doctor came running. I was gasping for breath, and my throat was swelling rapidly, completely cutting off oxygen.

“Hold tight,” the doctor said. “Calm down and try to breathe. I’ll give you epinephrine and oxygen.”

I pushed his arm off from mine, kicking and flailing desperately at the doctor, heaving and gasping for breath.

The epinephrine worked almost immediately. My heart started racing and I shook uncontrollably, but with the oxygen mask on, I could breathe tiny small breaths.

When I stumbled into the bathroom an hour later and saw a mirror for the first time, I was stunned. I bore more resemblance to an alien then a human. My lips protruded out several inches, my narrow nose had thickened and my cheeks ballooned out, pushing against my eyes, making them into slits. My face had a vacant, glazed look to it, with discolored patches of red skin on my cheeks and chin. I turned away from the mirror repulsed.

“Oh honey,” the nurse said when she came by, “you look so much better. Your face was completely mottled before and now it looks worlds better.”

. “Thanks,” I smiled wanly, “that makes me feel real good.”

I turned to my husband weeping. “Pinchas, how can you stand to look at me? I look scary and horribly ugly.”

He gazed seriously into my eyes. “Nechamie, I love you just the way you are. So your face got swollen. It is still the beautiful face of the wife that I love.”

Although the doctor reassured me that my face should return to normal within 24 hours, every time I saw a mirror I anxiously peered inside, looking and hoping for a return to normalcy. I felt guilty for being so concerned about my looks when I had just survived a near fatal allergic reaction. But I couldn’t stop myself from caring. I was afraid of looking like a monster forever.

I wanted only one thing. I wanted my own familiar face back. I didn’t want to see a caricature of my face staring back at me. I wanted to see the face that had been mine for the 25 years of my life. I wanted to see the face that was beautiful in the eyes of my husband and adored by my little son.

Slowly the swelling receded. My small sculpted chin appeared first. The fat lip which extended and puffed out diminished to an evenly shaped lip and my face resumed its oval shape with finely protruding cheekbones. My eyes which had been swelled shut, began to resume their natural almond shape, and lost their squinting bleary look.

I stared at myself in wonder. What a nice face, I thought. Even… could it be…pretty? I had never noticed my small delicately shaped lips, because my teeth weren’t perfect. I had seen only the narrowness of my eyes without ever noticing the rich hazel color, and long thick eyelashes. My focus on my flaccid stomach had not allowed me to appreciate my slender build. But now I stared and stared.

The face and body that was mine wasn’t perfect. But it had appeal. For the first time in my life, I was now able to appreciate both diamond and setting.