Rabbi's Chayva's Chat

The week of shiva for Deborah Gitin comes to an end today, and tomorrow we start the Shabbat for Noah Barlev’s bar mitzvah. I feel a mix of emotions as we hold multiple stages of life all at the same time.

I feel grateful for our community. Rabbi Nicole Auerbach, one of Deborah Gitin’s dearest friends, was so impressed by how Am Tikvah members organized a full week of shiva meals and services, even when some of the organizers didn’t know Deb, Ian, Micah or Rowan yet. She was so impressed, she wrote about that feeling to an online group for rabbis, so that people know there are communities like ours where people really show up for each other to “make suffering sufferable,” in the words of Rabbi Larry Hoffman. I share her sense of gratitude and sense of awe.

I feel continued sadness, because shiva is not the end of mourning for the Gitin Brown family, or the families of Amy Gottlieb and Beverly Flaum. We continue to walk with them through this grief.

I also feel joy, because I have already had the joy of studying Torah with Noah and I know how proud we will all be on Shabbat. His incredible self-awareness, love of being Jewish, and insightful humor shine from him. It is a privilege to bring him into our adult community as a bar mitzvah.

Psalm 126 gives us the famous assurance, “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy,” set to music so beautifully by Debbie Friedman. May we, as a community of meaning, take comfort from these words and weave together all these threads of life.