* Translation by Yehoshua Siskin ([email protected])
This past Friday night I spent Shabbat with the Israeli community in Tenafly, New Jersey. A few minutes before Shabbat began, arriving straight from important meetings in Washington, D.C., Ron and Orly Gilboa, parents of hostage Daniella Gilboa, joined us.
I have been praying for Daniella bat Orly and suddenly Orly was here. Hundreds of people came together for the Friday night meal this past Shabbat and, a moment before Kiddush, Rabbi Yitzhak Gershovitz, the local Chabad emissary, asked everyone to dedicate the singing of Eshet Chayil (Woman of Valor) to Daniella, while praying for her speedy return.
This is a hymn from the book of Proverbs that is sung every Shabbat, whose letters that begin each verse correspond to the alef-beit. The words are generally dedicated to the woman of the house, to a mother or to a wife, or to all the women of our nation. And now we were being asked to dedicate these words to Daniella. We were sending them from New Jersey to Gaza.
“A woman of valor, who can find? . . .
Her lamp is not extinguished at night . . .
Strength and splendor are her garments . . .
Give her the fruit of her hands . . .”
So began a most meaningful and inspirational Shabbat. When I asked Orly what sustains her, what gives her strength, she said it is precisely what was happening that Shabbat in New Jersey and elsewhere — gestures of solidarity and mutual responsibility from throughout the world, prayers and lovingkindness on the part of people she never met before but to whom she is now connected in the depths of her soul.
Shavua tov from New Jersey and may we all hear good news.
