My Friend, Adira

My friend, Adira, had a baby and went into a coma. The doctors had given up hope, but I had not. Everything would be OK. People come out of comas all the time. Of course, she was going to get better. She was only twenty- three. And she had to help me with my student teaching. And she was supposed to live next door to me in Kiryat Sefer. And now she had a little baby girl to raise! She had to get better. But she didn’t.

This morning I checked my e-mail. I did not even have to open the message. The Boruch Dayan Haemes glared at me from the subject line. I started to cry. She can’t be dead! She is Adira! We were going to laugh at the tactless Yeshiva World comments together. I had already asked Hashem to bring her home in time for Shabbos. Too bad I had forgotten to specify which home. By mistake He took her to His house.

So I cried. And cried. I started sobbing. Adira, Adira, Adira! Abba! Where is Adira? I need her. Her baby needs her. Her husband needs her. Abba’leh!

Then, I heard her voice in my head. “Malka, what are you doing sitting at home? You have to run to student teaching! Don’t you want to get married and move to Israel? Finish those hours now!”

I was planning on walking around depressed all day. Telling everyone about my friend who suddenly passed away, so it’s OK that I am late, that I did not finish my homework, that I ran out of patience and snapped at my students. My friend died, and I am sad. That’s a valid excuse for… everything.

That’s not what Adira would have done. Adira would not have stayed at home crying all day. She may have taken out a Tehillim. She probably would have learned a little bit. Then she would have gone about her day, as usual. Checking off everything on her list. Adira was a real person. She was not into exaggeration. It is what it is. Do what you have to do. And don’t make a big deal out of it.

I did not let myself imagine that Adira would die. And she didn’t. She lives on in my heart every time I stop and consider what she would have done… Every time I want to be lazy. Every time I give myself a pat on the back for doing something I was supposed to do. Every time I choose to do something I was not supposed to do. Would she be proud of me, or would she be forced to “say something somewhat mussarish but hopefully not too tough”(quote from an E-mail from Adira when she, unfortunately, was not too proud of me)?

The Gemara teaches us about mourning. “Al tifku lemeis yoter me’dei, v’al tanutu lo yoter mekeshir.” Don’t over-exxagerate your right to mourn the dead. This exaggeration makes us lose sight of the real message. Is it sad? Unimaginable? A terrible tragedy? Yes, yes, and of course! But what would Adira have done?

Words from Yehuda Boltshauser during Shiva

(This was taken from an e-mail on 11/18/09)

There is so much that I want to say, but being that today is Rosh Chodesh, the halacha is that we are not allowed to be maspid, so I will keep the hespid for the shloshim. My roshei yeshiva were however maskim that I share a few words of hakara.

There are no words to describe how I am feeling now – and I sincerely hope that no one should ever be in the same shoes as I am in now.

However, over the past 48 hours we have thanked Hashem countless of times for all the small nissim that he has performed for us, be it with Adira or with our baby, as well as his shlichim in the form of the doctors and hospital staff. It is said at the beginning of maseches taanis that there are three keys that HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not place in the hands of a shaliyach: life, death, and rain. Over the past 48 he turned all three keys. Yes, in the end Hakadosh Baruch Hu decided that he wanted my aishes chayil to come back to her creator, but I have no doubt that up in shamayim she transferred her neshama and chaim into our baby. The question of how or why this could happen does not exist in my mind. In the matzav that the baby was born, it was said that only 5% of babies survive, and out of those only 20% make it past the first 24 hours. It was quite evident that as Adira’s matzav got progressively worse, the baby made drastic improvements. At the one point that Adira responded to some extreme pain in her back, the baby started having extreme seizures. Just as Adira was niftar, the last tube was removed from the baby.

As Rabbi Zev Leff said “All she wanted was to have a baby – that was her tafkid.” And my Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav Shwartzman, said “Hashem does not give anyone a nisayon that they are not capable of handling.” I realize that my task ahead to grow and learn how to handle this nisayon. As Rabbi Feldman of Ner Yisroel said to my brother-in-law, "Just like there are stars in the sky that fall, those stars shoot back up. Adira was a shining star, and though she fell, she shot back up to her creator." And though I would I wish that I could have been by her side when she left this world, I was in the middle of mincha. Adira went up to the next world while we were in the middle of yaale v'yavo.

Right now, all I have left now is a beautiful little girl and a tremendous amount of chizuk.The reason I named her Rachel Adira Chana this morning is the following: Rachel Imeinu was also moser nefesh for Binyamin, Adira becaus Baruch Hashem the baby is strong, and Chana for chein. It is amazing how millions of yidden around the globe united together for a cause. There are no words of thanks that can begin to describe the amount of hakaras hatov that we have for all the people who davened, shared their stories with us, and assisted us in multiple ways thought the whole ordeal. Additionally, there are all the people who flew in from America to be with during this difficult time, and the baby is in good hands. Alevay that we should have the koach to unite klal yisroel together not only in times of pain such as this, but also for simchas and for the coming of moshiach.

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.