Toldot – וְאֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת – And These Are the Generations

Today, was Rosh Hodesh Kislev.

Traditionally, Rosh Hodesh is considered a time for celebrations of some kind with added prayers and parties for Jewish women. Lately, my shul started to be adherent to this tradition, and even started its own – women from the community are asked to speak about themselves, their experiences or particularly important events.

Since Kislev and Chanukah have a specific – not celebratory – importance in my family for the last twenty years, I have decided to speak about members of my family whose yortzait is coming this time of the year.

I spoke about four generations of my family from my great-grandparents to my grandmother to my uncle / father-in-law to my cousin / brother-in law and finally my husband, the only person who truly knew me better than I even known myself.

I hope I allowed the simcha that they brought to the lives of others shine through. I, certainly, tried to show their love for others.

I would like the names of Surah bat Leizer, Eliahu ben Tuvia -Leib, Leib ben Eliahu and Chaim ben Eliahu to be remembered forever.

I managed not to cry. I thought of the rainbow that showed up for the first time in the world in Kislev after the flood as a promise of their everlasting memory in the world.

Now, though, it is my time to cry.

To the both of you

Where are you? My Brother? My husband?

Are you sitting together at last, hand in hand?

Learning Torah and nearing G-d?

Are you happier closer to Light then to us?

Where are you, my husband, my lover, my friend?

You, the center of everything – room, city, world

That collapsed all around me on that joyful and cheerful day

Of the Chanukah Hag long ago. Twenty year ago.

Where are you, my brother, my friend?

You, the silent pursuer of the quietest moves of your wife?