Chizuk from R' Brown and the Girls in TD

I don't think there are any adequate or appropriate words that I can share with you on my own, but R' Brown spoke to the girls in Tomer Devorah today and there are a few points of Chizuk that I want to share with you (if anyone wants the whole print out of what he said, I have it typed up, just ask and I'll be happy to email it to you), and a few things that I spoke to the girls about that they shared about Adira.
R' Brown started off saying that he's given a lot of hespaidim and he’s met many girls but never someone with the name Adira, which means strength, and that that strength is the strength that she’s going to give to the baby to keep on going…but we just said these same things about adira… we just said that Adira was going to have the strength…so now how to we understand this and keep the strength for her baby?

Every bad situation comes with pain but also with a lesson for us to learn from it. We need to separate the pain from the lessons we learn from it….

Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in control and directing this world…certainly directing things like this…When things like this happen it’s not a time to undo and forget all our fundamental beliefs, our beliefs still stay strong during these times and if anything are strengthened with it…

Similar to a tornado….with a direction, a target, coming down with a bolt of lightning pointedly at the world and removing the neshama of Adira, Hahsem recalled her neshama not because of an imperfection, not because of a lack, not because of something is missing and it can’t stay here but the contrary is true. Adira, was a young women, who just became a mother, who just became a wife, just became a grown up and has just started a life. This reality is meant to test us, it’s meant for us to take home, it’s meant to affect us, and it’s meant to enable us to walk away with a lesson that will change our lives. It can’t be forgotten or overlooked.

The gemara teaches us about mourning…“al tifku lemeis yoter me’dei, v’al tanutu lo yoter mekeshir” don’t exaggerate the mourning for the dead more than is the appropriate amount... the rambam explains that often the natural way of the world is to exagerate and with that lose sight of the reality and the real message that’s meant to affect us. The rambam continues to relate how to handle a tzarah that effects your own chabura, your group. When someone in a group is hit by something or is missing the whole group feels the pain and the absence, the whole group suffers together, but also draws chizuk and grows together. Adira was very much a part of us in terms of chabura, be it Darchei Binah, or Tomer Devorah, or her community, we can all relate to her as a part of us, We all feel her vacancy as a part in us that is missing, permanently missing. The rambam tells us that in this situation we need to search our ways and do teshuva.

Rabbi Brown explained that Teshuva is not the idea of fixing something that is broken, but rather it finding that which is whole inside of ourselves and learning to appreciate it. A part of us is lost but we all have many other parts that still remain in tact. Teshuva means to return. to return to our own personal beginnings... who and what brought us to where we are today? How much hakaros hatov do we need to have? How much kippad av v’am do we owe?…the amount we can give back is endless by appreciating and recognizing the positivity in what we have.

R' Brown continued to say that things like this don’t happen to simple people…these things happens to people that Hashem considers their neshama in shamayim as a rose…theres a passuk in shir hashirim ”my friend went down to the garden…likot bashoshanim… to gather up roses” …the medrash tells us that those roses are considered neshamoes…these are the neshamoes that are taken from us before what is seemingly their time.

R’ Brown ended saying that Adira exemplified so many middos, so many ideas, so many concepts, we need to keep Adira in our consciousness by taking these upon ourselves!…. Learn from her qualities who we need to become…

She smiled? Smile! She was courteous? Be courteous! She was courageous enough to get married and have a baby, that takes courage? Be courageous! She had strength to give over to others to help klal yisroel? Do the same!

A little bit after that, I had a class and we spoke about a few concepts related to Adira, the girls spoke about the things that Adira taught them, or that they learnt from her by virtue of her presence. I want to share some of the things that they had said(again if you want e/t that was said please ask and ill be happy to email all of it). But in general, over and over it was repeated from many different angles that Adira, was a real person, that she was genuine and emesdik in what she did and said and how she taught them. One point that really touched me, a girl said that she knew Adira really cared because she would ask her about her shabbas plans every Wednesday and then on Sunday remember what she had said and ask specifics about how her shabbas had gone. When they say she was genuine they mean it, she didnt just hear what was being said to her, she listened! She was full of Simcha, she gave a workshop on simcha just last week, she didn't just teach it, she demonstrated it. The list goes on, every girl had something to say, every girl learnt something different, every girl was made to feel special by her, Adira was real and it was felt by everyone who was zoche to know her.

May we continue to draw on her kochoes as a point of strength and chizuk for klal yisroel, and may we only share in shimchoes and besoroes tovoes.