My hands are shaking and my body is trembling
As I hear of the tragedy which befell my dear friends
Mordechai Rafael ben Joseph Schijveschuurder z.l.
His wife and three children
Who came up to the land
To join their people and to fulfill
The commandment to settle
From the land of exile
The country of Holland
Ascended to heavenly Israel
“He is to me like a bear lying in wait
Like a lion in hiding
He led me off my way and tore me to pieces
He has made me desolate
He bent his bow and set me
As a mark of his arrow
He drove into my heart
The arrows of his quiver
I have become the laughing stock of all peoples
The burden of their songs all day long”
Lamentations 3: 10-15
I hear the sound of angels
Not of those who live on high
But of one who dwells on earth
Chaya bath Rabbi Mordechai Rafael
Schijveschuurder z.l.
8 years in body
venerable in spirit
And she spoke and said:
“Everything that happens here
It is all a miracle
Those who live and those who die
Nothing happens for no reason and God knows what He is doing
He wants to tell us that we have to behave better.
That soon the Mashiach will come and my parents will arise”
And for just a moment the land of Israel
Was silent
And millions of tears
Ascended to the Heavenly Throne
And asked for mercy
It shall come to pass in the latter days….
For out of Zion shall go forth Torah
And the word of the Lord from Yerushalaim
Isaiah 2:2,3
Death is horrible, hard and black
A source of anguish
Our first reaction is consternation
We are dumb and broken
Slowly but surely
Our feeling of dismay makes place for a sentiment of mystery
The Mysterium Magnum
Suddenly life which we believed we knew
Seems to hide behind a veil of the Great Secret
Our speech stops. Our understanding fails
In death there is only silence and an acknowledgement of the Other
Real life starts long before existence commences
It comes from far
It travels through experience
Growth, suffering, insight and deed
Life is always on the road, also after death
In the Torah nobody dies
One is “gathered to one’s forefathers”
“When will your days be fulfilled that you will be with your fathers?”
Does neshama become dust?
Will spirit become ashes?
It is only the neshama which creates immortal words
Art, and thoughts
Life is beautiful when it is carried by the body
But still more beautiful is life in the word
The word is greater than the world
Due to the word of the Ribono shel Olam
The world came into being and the universe was created
The Torah is the creation of the word in kedusha
And if a great human being dies
Then his neshama becomes a word and that word lives in the book of the Creator.
Mordechai Rafael Schijveschuurder (44)
Tzira Schijveschuurder (41)
Ra’aya Shulamith Schijveschuurder (14)
Avraham Yitschak Yedidyah Schijveschuurder (4)
Chemda Bracha Schijveschuurder (2)
In fire and with “Shema” on your lips you left this world
You are our eternal teachers
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