Baltimore, MD - Feb. 21, 2025 - There is so much to process.  There is so much to write.  Who am I to put my two cents into the mental state affairs of our people, but I will anyway. Thank you to Baltimore Jewish Life for allowing me to share my thoughts and perspectives, especially through the lens of a preschool Morah.  It  is with this lens that I view the macabre events of the day and of course from a humanistic one as well.

Somewhat comforting is all the posts and tweets that have been shared by politicians and social media personality, jew and non-jew alike.  What is not comforting at all and actually what has enraged me,  yes rage, is that it takes the butchering of babies displayed in their coffins for the world to finally wake up?   What happened on October 7^th?  Was that slaughter not enough? What about the still held hostages and the stories of their cruel and tortured experiences, their treatment that less of an animal; is that not enough?  Has there not been enough shaking of humanity, crumbling of morals and trampling of dignity  for nearly 18 months? And yet today, something made  Evil more real.  Perhaps, as a friend said, these innocent Bibas children represented Hope and we were holding on to that hope for so long.  Now our hearts are crushed. How do we pick up those pieces?  How do we dare to hope again? We don’t have a choice. Hope is the only way we have to live. To despair is to give in and then Evil wins.   It is the core value of our Judaism.  Actions speak louder than words and we witnessed countless pictures and video clips of our heroes, be they soldiers, widowed wives and the hostages themselves demonstrating the Chut Hatikvah, the thread of Hope that is our life sustaining Emunah.  This is the trademark of our People. This is what we desperately cling to.

A friend shared that Kfir and Ariel showed the world the distinction of good and evil. Their very existence and wherever they were at the moment inspired goodness and light throughout the world.  What also comforts me is that we know the Soul is Eternal, and all these Kedoshim are in a very High place and have wisdom of all these events, since the beginning of time,  that we are not privy to in our lifetime.

It is hard to find balance and reconcile these thoughts. It was oh-so-hard to go to work on Thursday, and even Wednesday when news reports were just starting to trickle in.  The Bibas family originally posted that as long as there was no confirmation, they were still on their journey of  hope.  And then.

My friend and fellow Morah asked me frantically on Wednesday afternoon what my plan was for Thursday.  I told her I had no idea other than to focus on the children.  Later that day, when the terrible news of the deaths had been confirmed, I decided to apply my energy, hard as that may be,  to the avodah of a Morah, of teaching the children Aleph Beis as Kfir and Ariel, H”yd, never had that formal learning.

Later that evening, I saw a quote from the Lubavitcher Rebbe about teaching Aleph Beis to another person, and even if we only know an aleph, then we teach the aleph. It gave me much needed focus and helped me to emotionally concentrate on my students and being in the present.

This Morah also  shared with me what she did and it is so very beautiful and so hope-inspiring.

As she was teaching the students  the letter Mem which is for Mitzvah she explained to them the concept of Light.  Every time they do a mitzvah, they fill the world with light, just like the Shabbos candles they see their mothers light.  They can’t see the light from the mitzvah, but it’s there.  Picture a class of lively five-year-old boys. All day, these young children practiced mastering this important concept and were encouraged with their acts of kindness to each other.  How proud and excited they were to fill the world with Light!

This whole situation reminded me of something similar that happened years ago and perhaps was the subconscious impetus for me to cope in my classroom. Many years ago, when I was a young mom, and my older boys, now adult men,  were in elementary,  I had my own preschool child in playgroup.   I was supposed to substitute for that playgroup one day.  I got a phone call in the morning from my mom letting me know about a pigua  that just happened in Israe to a family we were close with when they lived in the same apartment building as we did before they moved to Israel.   I tutored one of the children in  aleph beis. She was  in a coma and died shortly after.  I had no idea what I was doing when I was hired to tutor her.  As I was still in high school, I   had no experience in teaching. I guess in hindsight, that was my early training  for teaching Aleph Beis for now.  When I arrived at  the playgroup a little early to get the instructions from the Morah, I shared with her what happened and asked her advice on how to teach.  She very wisely listened first, comforted me, and told me to just focus on the kids and the moment.  That is what I did then and that is what I did on Thursday, and it worked in a beautiful way, B”H’, with the special aleph beis activity I prepared.

In the evening, when I was learning with my Oorah Torah mate, she comforted me in a profound way.  She said that as a Morah, I should be proud that my first student, Rachel, H'yd, took with her on her next leg of her neshama's journey the Aleph Beis that I had taught her.

We are learning from the Sefer Arise and Aspire by Rebbetzin Shira Smiles.  It explains Birchas HaShachar  and were up to  the bracha of Pokeach Ivrim.  We learned that a person who cannot see has to look beyond the physical world to “see.”   When we cover our eyes, we are forced to  look inward and see that  inner spiritual  light. It astounds me how the hostages were moser nefesh to keep mitzvos, when many had never done before,  but it makes sense.  They were in the darkest of places and they looked beyond the confines of their physical place.  They used their inner eye to see the Light.  May we all merit to see this Light in the coming of days.