We know life goes on and we must go on, and that our Creator is the Baal HaRachamim and Av HaRachamim (Master and Father of Compassion). We also know you are not lost to us at all but have merely moved on to the next world, a place no man on earth can fathom.
Still, your departure has left our world darker and impels us to search our hearts and souls for blemish as we strive to rise to a level of purity each of us has been granted the potential to achieve.
Yehoshua means, literally, Hashem will save…
I pull a volume from my modest collection of sefarim and the pages fall open to Haftara leYom Rishon shel Pesach. Intrigued, my eyes scan the words and I am almost instantly both startled and rewarded. “And Hashem said to Yehoshua, on this day I will raise you to a level of greatness in the eyes of all of Yisrael…”
How apropos that your Shloshim should fall on Pesach Sheni, a Second Passover granted those who were rendered spiritually impure or were too far removed in distance to partake of the mitzvah of the Korban Pesach four weeks earlier.
Pesach Sheni is to be taken as Hashem’s benevolent offer of a “second chance” for those who didn’t get it right the first time. Whereas we have “until the day following the seventh week…”(Sefiras HaOmer) to cleanse our souls from defilement and impurities in readiness to commemorate Mattan Torah on Shavuos, it is clear that you have outshone us all.
Earth’s loss of your radiant luminescence is indisputably heaven’s gain.
Who are we to justify what’s supposed to be…?
* * * * *
One more thing, my dearest grandson…while I am fully aware that Jewish grandmothers are supposed to be all about chocolate kisses and hugs, I’ve been known to manage sneaking in a nudge here and there, as in the occasional reminder not to lose sight of the Big Picture in a world where the quest for material comfort and gain reigns supreme.
The last time we engaged in this type of back and forth was five days before the onset of Pesach. “I have a special personal connection with Hashem,” you were quick to assure me. Though your words were music to my ears, I could have never in my wildest dreams imagined how special.
