Dear Friends,

One of the most charming legends in Babylonian Talmud concerns a first century miracle worker named Honi, known for his unusually close relationship with God and for his ability to intercede on behalf of the community during times of drought. Like Rip Van Winkle (who post-dates Honi by some 1700 years), Honi’s story concludes when he falls asleep for seventy years and wakes up into a world in which he knows no one. Lonely and burdened with despair, he prays for and receives death, which prompts another sage, Rava, to share one of Talmud’s greatest, rhyming aphorisms: או חברותא או מיתותא, oh hevruta oh mituta, give me friendship or give me death. 

This statement, which is among my favorites in the Talmudic canon, reflects the fundamental Jewish idea, first expressed by God himself, that “it is not good for man to be alone.” And the rabbis, of course, take God’s sentiment a step further. Not only is it not good to be alone; it is potentially fatal. The power and sanctity of friendship was so central to how the Sages imagined and constructed Jewish culture that its absence and/or its dissolution are presented as nothing less than mortal dangers. 

These dangers are explored in several ways in ancient rabbnic literature, and one of the most well known is the story of a deadly plague that afflicted the students of Rabbi Akiva during the omer. The reason for the plague, according to the legend, is that the students were unkind to one another during halakhic disputes and it ultimately claimed 24,000 lives, an astronomical number that Talmud, suggestively, enumerates as 12,000 pairs of students–12,000 chevrutot, 12,000 study-buddies whose relationships broke down amidst the storm and struggle of Torah study. It is because of this legend that the omer period, from Pesach to Shavuot, is a period of semi-mourning throughout the Jewish world and it is because the plague ceased on the 33rd day of the omer that Lag B’Omer, which we celebrated yesterday, became a day of festivities. 

Insofar as the omer is itself a countdown (or count-up) to revelation, the story of the plague intimates that the movement from slavery to Sinai–from the moral and spiritual wasteland of Egypt to the verdant garden of Torah study–is actually a movement from isolation to companionship and from interpersonal strife and atomization to deep bonds of friendship and community, the very moment of revelation during which, according the midrash, the entire people of Israel was like “one person with one heart.” 

This is a beautiful vision of what it might mean to receive and share Torah and it feels very true to me and it has been an unflagging constant in my life. From the time I began Hebrew school as a very small child and continuing through the present day, studying Torah with others–the dynamic experience of chevruta in its many forms–has been an engine of profound and enduring friendships. I believe that is, in fact, the primary meaning of revelation and the reason why we sometimes have to march through wilderness to get it. It’s not so much about what the words say. It’s about how we relate to one another in the wake of such experience. 

R. Benjamin Resnick

Ben

“Wherever I go, I am always only going to the land of Israel. I am only here in Breslov temporarily.”

— Reb Nachman of Bratzlav (Breslov)

For many Jews living in the Diaspora, Israel can feel both deeply personal and

impossibly distant. We celebrate its achievements, worry during times of crisis, and pray for its peace. Yet there is a dimension of Israeli life that is difficult to fully comprehend from afar: the way history, war, memory, and national responsibility are woven into the fabric of everyday life.

In Israel, wars are not merely chapters in a textbook; they are family stories. They live at

the Shabbat table, in photographs on the wall, in names recited on Yom Hazikaron, and

in the memories carried by nearly every family.

This year at the PJC Yom Hazikaron ceremony, our students and congregants

experienced this reality in a deeply personal way through two of our educators: Michael

Divon and our Shinshinit, Eden Levi. Their stories are separated by fifty years, yet they

echo one another with remarkable power.

Michael Divon was eighteen years old when the Yom Kippur War broke out on October

6, 1973. Like so many young Israelis, he was serving in the IDF when the country was

caught by surprise by coordinated attacks from Egypt and Syria on the holiest day of the

Jewish calendar. In his presentation to our community, Michael described waking up to

the sound of warplanes, hearing reports of the invasion, and suddenly realizing that the

future he had imagined had changed forever.

Michael’s story reminds us that military service is not an abstraction for Israelis; it is a

fundamental part of growing up, intertwined with friendship, responsibility, fear, and

sacrifice. He also reflected on earlier generations of loss, including relatives who died

during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 and friends murdered during the Hamas

attacks on October 7, 2023. Across decades, Israeli history remains family history.

Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War, another young Israeli found herself facing a

different national trauma.

On October 7, 2023, our Shinshinit, Eden Levi, was sixteen years old. That morning,

terrorists attacked the Nahal Oz base near the Gaza border where her brother, Koby

Levy, was serving as a combat medic. He had only one week left before completing his

service. Eden described waking up in Ra’anana to frantic messages and reports of

infiltration, losing contact with her brother for hours while her parents were stranded on

a flight to New York.

She later learned that fifty-three soldiers at Nahal Oz were killed that day, many of them

Koby’s close friends. When he finally called that evening to say he was alive, Eden

realized the brother who returned was not the same person who had left. When he

arrived home on Sunday night, covered in dust and blood, she could barely recognize

him.

Listening to Michael and Eden speak side by side was profoundly moving. One entered

war in 1973; the other was shaped by it in 2023. Together, they illuminate a timeless

truth: the defense of the Jewish people is not theoretical. It is personal, immediate, and

generational.

For our students here in the Diaspora, these stories matter deeply. They help our children understand that Israel is not only a place on a map or a subject in a classroom.

It is a living society made up of people their own age; young people who

carry enormous responsibility, resilience, grief, and hope. Through educators like

Michael and Eden, our students begin to see Israelis not as distant symbols, but as real

human beings whose lives are shaped by the ongoing story of the Jewish people.

At the same time, these encounters challenge us as American Jews to deepen our own

relationship with Israel. Not simply through politics or headlines, but through empathy,

listening, and shared memory. To truly connect with Israel means trying to understand

what it feels like to grow up knowing that national history can enter your home at any

moment.

And yet, both Michael and Eden also speak not only about loss, but about hope.

Michael recalls standing near Mount Sinai during the war and imagining Moses

descending with the Ten Commandments: a transcendental moment of spiritual

connection amid uncertainty and fear. Eden speaks about discovering that courage is

not the absence of fear, but the ability to move forward despite it. She reminds us that

even after unimaginable tragedy, Israelis continue to choose hope and life. After her

year of service in Westchester, Eden will join the IDF for her compulsory service. May

she go in peace and return to her family whole and safe.

Perhaps this is one of the greatest lessons Israel offers Diaspora Jewry: that Jewish

history is not only something we study. It is something we carry together.

At the PJC Learning Center, we are grateful that our students can learn these lessons

not only from books, but from the living voices of Israelis who embody them every day.

We are currently seeking host homes for our next group of Shinshinim. You don't need

to have young children at home to participate: any warm, welcoming environment is

wonderful! If you would like to learn more about the rewarding experience of hosting a

Shinshin, please contact Ana at edudir@thepjc.org.

Please click HERE to watch Koby Levy, Eden’s brother, share his experiences from

October 7 at the Nahal Oz military base.

ה' עֹז לְעַמּוֹ יִתֵּן, ה' יְבָרֵךְ אֶת עַמּוֹ בַשָּׁלוֹם

Adonai will give strength to His people; Adonai will bless His people with peace.

With much love,

Ana Turkienicz

Ana

Dear Friends,



I'm dedicating this column to the memory of my friend Cheryl Agris.

I wasn't prepared for how the loss of her shy smile and thoughtful words would affect me. We didn't know each other well. We participated together in the monthly PJC Book Group. I believe I speak for the Group when I say how much she will be missed.

When I experience something that touches my core, I'm often moved to write a poem. I will humbly share my poem with you.

For Cheryl

At an age when death

is on the horizon,

the unnatural passing of a friend

devastates.

No rhyme or reason

no precipitating factor,

on a hike in Texas

overcome by heat

she passed out and left

us bereft

It could happen to anyone

but it happened to a member

of my kehillah

A brilliant lawyer

unassuming

soft-spoken and kind

Why?

Where was the shechina?

No response.

Barbara

Out of the Sky

Matti Friedman

In Out of the Sky, the award-winning journalist and author, Matti Friedman, addresses a little known chapter in Jewish history. He tells the story of a handful of parachutists who left the safety of Mandate Palestine in 1944 to return to the abyss of Nazi Europe in a futile attempt to save Jews.

The most famous parachutist was 22 year-old poet Hannah Senesh. Friedman delved into thousands of documents in newly opened archives, diaries and letters to bring Hannah to life. The author also visited sites where Hannah lived, parachuted and wrote to recreate her story.

Originally from Budapest, Hungary, Hannah recognized at a young age that there was little hope for European Jews and emigrated to Kibbutz Sde Yam where she wrote the famous poem, Eli Eli. Daughter of a Hungarian playwright, Hannah encapsulated the myth of the brave Israeli determined to till the soil of Eretz Israel and save European Jews. Although Hannah was captured and killed before she could even save her mother, Hannah became the embodiment of the Zionist pioneer.

Friedman follows Hannah and four other parachutists on their mission under the auspices of Britain's MI19 and the Haganah. Before her fateful jump, Hannah handed a folded piece of paper to a comrade with the poem in which she describes herself as a match ready to be consumed by a conflagration. Although Hannah did not save a single Jew, her story lived on to inspire the pioneers who created the Jewish state. Friedman cites a telling diary entry from April 10th 1940 in which Hannah describes what her horticulture instructor says about the role of root cells. These cells, Hannah records, "are the first to penetrate the earth and prepare the way for the entire root. In the meantime they die." Hannah was prepared to die for the nascent Jewish state.

Matti Friedman tells a gripping and surprising tale of a forgotten moment in Jewish history. He demonstrates how stories themselves can have a power even greater than warfare. By exploring the line between myth and reality, heroism and futility, Friedman creates an argument than has resonance for our own time.

Barbara

I See the Faces of Many Others

Yehuda Amichai

Children ask me: What are you dreaming?

As my father asked me when I was a child, What

are you dreaming? That's what I've come to now.

My hair turning white is a new beginning

or a flag of slow surrender. Talk of

what happened in the past passes like a cloud

and my mother's birth pangs when she gave birth to me

have passed into me, every day a bit of pain.

And what was on earth is in the heavens and what was

in the heavens is on earth. And what was transparent

has turned opaque and what was opaque is transparent now:

when I look out the window

I see only myself outside,

and when I look in the mirror

I see the faces of many others.

Translated by Robert Alter

"Share a Simcha" allows congregants to share their news with our PJC community. Please submit news about family members -- engagements, births, job updates, kid achievements, community acknowledgements and any other milestones -- to the HaKol Editor, Barbara Saunders-Adams.

*Mazal Tov to our May Birthday Celebrants: Daniel Perkis, Alec Cecil,

Joan Sasson, Vivienne Garvett, Julian Kushnick, Florence Grossman, Aiden Levy, Evan Lanoil, Jeniece Ilkowitz, Chauncy Lodhi, Darren Lee, Rhonda Singer, Matthew Bernstein, Marc Mazur, Morris Stampfer, Alina Levine, Barry Goldenberg, Neil Yelsey, Frederica Sigel, Hazel Smyser, Steve Liesman, Sari Schulman,

Adam Ilkowitz, Susan Simpson, Noam Gretz, Ethan Cochie, Peter Wies,

Sofie Trachten, Diane Cohen, Michael Weissman, Benjamin Garvett, Zachary Ehrenreich, Zara Levy

• Mazal Tov to Lisa Nathan and Peter Bazeli on the Bar Mitzvah of their son, Desmond Bazeli

Share a Simcha is a regular HaKol feature, so keep your news and updates coming!

Tributes & Donations

Donations to General Fund

Neco and Ana Turkienicz, in appreciation of Efrem Sigel's Bar Mitzvah and the Sigel family’s sacred commitment to the Pelham Jewish Center community

Neco and Ana Turkienicz, in memory of Cheryl Agris

Neco and Ana Turkienicz, in memory of Abbey Goldstein

Adam and Magdalena Bukowski, in memory of Abbey Goldstein

Matthew and Rebecca Schwarz, in honor of the PJC Players 

Donations to Rabbi's Discretionary Fund

Gary and Evelyn Trachten 

Mr. and Mrs. Mark Walfish, in honor of Efrem Sigel’s second Bar Mitzvah

Billing statements are emailed monthly. 

Checks made out to the Pelham Jewish Center can be mailed to Pelham Jewish Center, P.O. Box 418, Montvale, NJ 07645. Credit card payment instructions are on your monthly emailed billing statement, or go to https://thepjc.shulcloud.com/payment.php. 

If you are interested in paying via appreciated securities or IRA distributions, please email Mitch Cepler.

It is the policy of the Pelham Jewish Center to make every effort to assist members experiencing financial challenges. Financial challenges should never be a barrier to being an active member of the PJC community. You can reach out to President, Lisa Neubardt, Treasurer, Mitchell Cepler or Rabbi Benjamin Resnick to speak confidentially concerning your ability to pay PJC dues and Learning Center tuition.