A Year for Pesha Leah

            When I was just fifteen years young, my world was shattered by the weight of a truck. I had lost my beloved sister, Pesha Leah who was only twenty-three at the time, in a road accident as she was returning home from dancing at her friend’s wedding. I was broken inside, yet tried to not let it show.

            The pain and darkness consumed me. I don’t know why I kept it to myself; maybe I was scared, alone, helpless, or just stupid. I started turning down all of my hobbies. I rarely cracked open a book; didn’t pick up a pen to write often. When I did, it was all about death and evil and endless pain.

            I soon found myself not being observant in majority of Judaism’s ways. Some out in the open, but most I kept hidden to myself; not wanting to have to explain a feeling to those too coarse to want to even attempt to understand what I was going through.

            One thing I stopped doing almost immediately was Shabbos. It just seemed like too pure of a day for a world that can harvest such destruction. So I obliterated it from my week. I would put on a great performance for those nearby; but once they left it would be computer on and headphones in. When I was in Yeshiva, it was not easy to break Shabbos; thus I felt compelled to do so even more. I relished the feeling of shoving the middle finger in G-d’s face. Yet, it was a secret I was prepared to take to the grave.

            Then, my life turned around, again, one year ago. After months of trying to convince me, Hillel of Metro Detroit had gotten me onboard a Birthright trip to Israel with forty other Jewish college students – most of whom were not orthodox. These students did something I was scared to let others before them do: accept me for who I currently was.

            Within the first seventy-two hours, they had me opening up my soul to them, and they opened up in return. We shared a connection that was held up by Band-Aids; therefore it was stronger even than chains. They helped me shed my actor’s masks and shined the spotlight on my true self.

            Towards the end of the week, we had reached a level of family and soon it was time for Shabbos in Jerusalem. Watching many of them take on one way or another to honor the Shabbos Queen in a way they would not do back in America made me take on one last complete Shabbos, the way I grew up observing it.

I did it for my sister Pesha, who worked so diligently in her life and in her death to teach me to be true to what I feel. I did it for Pesha who gave me memories of gleaming Shabbos candlesticks, and a pearly white table surrounded by friends, relatives, and random guests.

            I took in that Shabbos in Jerusalem and I inhaled it together with my new family. And I am proud to announce that this Shabbos will mark one complete year without me exhaling.

            I could only have done this with the support of a group of people who probably do not even realize how much they effected my life with their remarks, compassion, showering of comfort, advice when needed, and most of all their energy that I fed off of while in Israel with them.

            Thank you Bus 1147 for helping me give a year to my dear sister Pesha Leah, and more importantly for helping me give a year to my true self.

            May the Shabbos Queen accompany the soul of Pesha Leah bas Chaim Leibel to G-d’s Heavenly Throne.