In Memory of Esther Zuroff z”l 

In Parshat Mishpatim, we read about God’s promise to Moshe that B’nai Yisrael will be brought to the Land of Israel and that God will protect them there. In Shmot 23:26, we read: “No woman will suffer miscarriage or remain childless in your land. I will cause the number of your days to be full.”

This means that in an ideal world, women would carry their babies to term and give birth to healthy children who would live full lives.

According to Ramban, this would be a true miracle which would include no deaths from war, plague or illness. Rather, people would die at a ripe old age- whatever happens to be the normal span of life in that particular generation (during the time of King David people lived into their seventies and eighties).

This blessing can’t come soon enough. After teaching an eight week fertility workshop and seeing what trials and tribulations the women in the group are going through in order to conceive and give birth to a healthy full term baby, I can only pray that they are blessed and that “no woman will suffer a miscarriage or remain childless” as each baby is truly a miracle.

This past week, Israel suffered a great loss as a twenty-nine year old teacher, husband and father of four, Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal z”l was murdered by a nineteen year old Israeli-Arab while waiting at a bus stop. This senseless murder especially affected our community as Rabbi Ben Gal’s sister teaches at our elementary school in Jerusalem and over the years has taught our children. This murder took place just a month after Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a thirty-five years old mohel, husband and father of six was fatally shot.

Both rabbis lost their lives because they were Jewish. Now more than ever we need God’s protection of the Jewish people in the land of Israel as stated in our parsha.

May the miracles of Shmot 23:26 be fulfilled speedily in our days and may the blessing that we recite during the Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings) at each wedding be fulfilled: “Bring intense joy and exultation to the barren one (Jerusalem) through the ingathering of her children amidst her in gladness. Blessed are you, God, Who gladdens Zion through her children.”

May we be blessed in celebrating happy occasions in Jerusalem and throughout Israel.