Robbert Baruch is Rebecca’s father

For those who are new to this house; we just finished the evening prayer. Central to this prayer are the “shema”: the confirmation of the oneness and proximity of the creator and the Amida: the “standing” or “18” prayer, which consists of 19 utterances.

We are in the 4th day of the 7 days of shiva. This is actually the second stage of mourning; during the first stage mourners are not allowed to even utter a blessing, and generally refrain from any social activities until the burial; during the second stage, the mourners are generally re-introduced into the community by ways of “sitting” shiva, where friends and family come to console the mourners; the third stage is that of the shloshim – 30 days after the burial- wherein certain restrictions apply followed by a year of mourning, in which in 11 months (in specific cases) kaddish – the laudation and acceptance of that what is – is said.  During this 7 days of mourning, mourners are not to study torah; only the laws of mourning themselves.

However, I’d like to make an exception here. On page 40 of Masechet Sota there is an interesting discussion on the amida. Twice a day, the Amida is not only said silently as we did tonight, but repeated out loud by the “shaliach tsibur”, the prayer leader. He repeats the 19 utterances on behalf of the members of the community present.

Rav said, “We give thanks to You, O Lord our God, for giving us the ability to thank You.”

Shmuel said, “God of all flesh, we thank you for giving us the ability to thank You.”

Rav Simai said, “Our Creator and Creator of all things from time immemorial, we give You thanks.”

The Nehardeans said in the name of Rav Simai, “Blessings and thanksgiving to Your great Name because You have kept us alive and preserved us, and we give You thanks.”

Rav Acha bar Yaakov used to conclude his prayer like this, “So may You continue to keep us alive and be gracious to us and gather us together and assemble our exiles to Your holy court, to observe Your laws and to perform Your will with a perfect heart, and we give You thanks.”

Rav Papa said, “Let us recite all of these prayers!

The first lesson we learn, is that when five Rabbis disagree, it’s best to agree with all of them. But on a serious note: it shows that gratitude can not be delegated. Gratitude, humbling oneself by accepting that we cannot do things alone, is something someone has to do him- or herself.

And this gives me the opportunity to thank all of you for coming here tonight to share our sadness, but also to thank you for your support. And it also gives me the opportunity to thank this synagogue, its leaders, and officials, for what they meant for Rebecca. In this synagogue, Rebecca almost set her first footsteps. She felt extremely comfortable here. I remember how she climbed on the Bima during the reading of the Torah and, curious as she was, peeked in the prayer books. We often went on Friday nights, sometimes on Saturday.

During the times we still had hope for a recovery, we created a playlist. On of the songs on it came from her playlist on Spotify: it was one of her favorite Friday night songs: yedid nefers. Beloved of the soul. In a beautiful parallel, the yearning of the soul to be one with its creators is sung, It is about homesickness. About yearning to go where you belong.

For Rebecca, moving to Israel, joining the army was partially resolving that yearning to be one with other Jews. A feeling that to a large extend started here. For all that we can be thankful for during Rebecca’s life, we can be thankful to this little synagogue.