|
Dear Friends and Supporters,
On Shemini Atzeret, a day already dense with holiness and emotion, our people experienced both profound joy and deep heartbreak.
That very day, twenty living hostages were returned to Israel, twenty souls who had endured two years of unthinkable torment. Their return filled Jewish hearts everywhere with tears of relief, gratitude, and national pride. It felt like a collective simcha, a divine mercy that pierced through months of darkness.
And yet, on that same sacred day, our community lost Rabbi Moshe Hauer, z”l, a man of Torah, humility, and vision. His passing struck with the same shattering sound that echoes beneath every chuppah.
The Talmud (Berachot 31a) tells that Mar bar Ravina once saw his guests overflowing with joy at his son’s wedding, so he broke a precious glass before them to temper the celebration. From this the custom was born: even at the peak of happiness, we pause to recall the brokenness of our world. As Tehillim (137:5–6) teaches, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem… If I do not set Jerusalem above my greatest joy.”
Every simcha, every moment of revealed kindness, carries within it that fragile awareness that the Jewish story is still incomplete. And so perhaps, in Heaven’s mysterious balance, Shemini Atzeret became that kind of moment. The return of our hostages was our simcha, a flash of light and redemption. But the Torah reminds us that even miracles have a cost.
When our forefather Jacob was saved from Esau, he said, “Katonti mikol hachasadim” (Bereishit 32:11), "I have become small from all the kindnesses You have shown me." Rashi explains, “Perhaps my merits have been diminished because of the miracles You have done for me.”
Miracles, too, must be balanced. The universe itself seems to hold its breath when joy overflows, and sometimes a tzaddik, a righteous soul, becomes that balance. Perhaps Rabbi Moshe Hauer, z”l, was that neshama on that day: the broken glass beneath our chuppah of national joy.
In his memory, NCSY is dedicating the hebrew month of Cheshvan’s learning, letting his example inspire students to carry forward his values and teachings.
May his memory remind us that holiness lives in the tension between joy and heartbreak, laughter and tears. And may we soon merit the day when no glass will need to be broken, when our people and our world, in Israel and beyond, will at last be whole.
With gratitude,
Rabbi Glenn Black
CEO, NCSY Canada
| 
