Haifa — I recently spent the day with Boris and Alla, the parents of Tanya Boravik, who was killed on Dec. 2 on a bus in Haifa by a mass murderer (suicide bomber sounds too romantic). Tanya was a talented photographer whose deep eyes betrayed her youth.
Tanya, 23, came to Israel in 1995 from Ukraine as part of a program for high school students. She wrote home how wonderful life in Israel was, and her family arrived a year later.
At the cemetery, Tanya’s father placed a large framed photograph on her grave. My eyes kept being drawn back to hers as the Deputy Defense Minister’s words were drowned out by the torrential rains. The heavens are crying, someone whispered.
Speech after speech filled the air with words that found no hearts, because the sense of bewilderment was too profound.
Tanya had participated in Jewish adult education programs in Haifa. She came to be with other Russians who appreciate the opportunity to build a Jewish community that spoke to their needs: immigrants still suffering the effects of Russia’s 70-year campaign to destroy Jewish life.
After the funeral, Tanya’s father pleaded with me to stay. “Please understand. We are victims of the Soviet war on Judaism. I don’t even know how to mourn as a Jew.”
After some time with Tanya’s family, I left for Jerusalem.
I went straight to the memorial service marking the 30-day mourning period for Shoshi Ben Yishai, who was born in America. Shoshi was murdered by a terrorist as she traveled home from school with her friends on Jerusalem’s Egged bus #25. That is the bus that travels to my neighborhood. Shoshi was a schoolmate of my daughter Nitza.
At the memorial service, Shoshi’s family and her 200 schoolmates shared eulogies. A 40-page booklet with stories, pictures and lessons learned from Shoshi’s life was distributed. She always had a smile on her face and was the first one to greet a new person or guest. She would sense a problem in a friend and initiate a discussion to help that person open up and see how she could help.
Then the rabbi made a point that rang so true. Mourning the death of a young person is mourning the loss of potential, of the life that could have been lived.
I looked at Shoshi’s smiling face on the booklet and saw the joy she could have brought, the family she could have built, the dreams unfulfilled.
Shoshi died “al kiddush Hashem” — because she was a Jew. People who are killed for being Jewish in the land of Israel are dying for the preservation of the Jewish people. God’s covenant with the Jewish people beckons us to teach the world about goodness — and to carry the burden as the target of evil.
Changing ourselves
I thought back to my experience at the home of the Russian immigrants, Boris and Alla, and their connection to this funeral. Two families lost their eldest child, both young women whose smiles and personalities brought light wherever they went. Tanya, born in Russia; and Shoshi, born in America. They never met, but their lives, at this moment, intersect.
Tanya’s family, and hundreds of thousands like them, are painfully lacking Jewish knowledge and community that could be a source of wisdom and support in these very trying times.
By contrast, Shoshi’s family members were comforted to see their daughter’s friends undertaking a greater commitment to life, in response to her death. To change in some meaningful way, no matter how small, in the merit of the person who died, is an affirmation that her soul lives on, eternally benefiting from the positive deeds she continues to inspire.
It is also a response that says: I am not indifferent to suffering. By changing ourselves, we express the belief in God’s involvement in our lives, and that everything happens with meaning and purpose. Tragedy that touches us requires us to wake up and change the state of affairs within us and around us.
I looked at the list of things undertaken by Shoshi’s schoolmates: “I will improve my use of speech.” “I will try to greet everyone with a smile.” “I will be more sensitive to others and their problems.”
In our response to death, we can teach the meaning of life. The Jewish response to tragedy is teshuva — individual and community change.
I asked myself: What am I prepared to do? How will I change for the better? What can I undertake that will really make a difference?
I remembered that when Natan Sharansky was locked in a KGB prison, his wife Avital was asked, “How can we help?” She responded: “If he were your brother, your son, your husband, you would figure out a way.”
Although in difficult times, the Jewish family is one, we need to act more as one family all the time. I believe if we would appreciate our shared destiny as Jews, we would begin to reach out to each other differently, to treat each other more as family. For the next 30 days, I am going to work at improving that sensitivity in myself. Those who I wouldn’t normally see as part of my community, I will try to view as my extended family.
Perhaps, we — you and I — can undertake to be part of Tanya’s family and community.
Let’s all do something in the merit of the soul of Tanya, and of Shoshi. E-mail me ideas for improving ourselves and our communities. Perhaps we can fill up a booklet, and present it to one pained family of Russian immigrants, at the end of their shloshim (30-day mourning period).
Perhaps the Jewish people can grow closer together. Perhaps we can find an end to this horrible suffering.
Rabbi Shalom Schwartz is the director of Aish HaTorah’s Russian program. He can be reached at shalom@aish.com.
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