The Blessing of a Broken Heart

by Mandell, Sherri

• ISBN13: 9781592640294
• ISBN10: 159264029X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Toby Pr

Summary

I live with contradiction. A friend once said to me: Our children are our teachers. In death, Koby is teaching me more than I have learned from anyone alive. I live knowing that suffering teaches wisdom and a depth of infinite compassion. I live with the horror of my son's brutal death and the immense, magnificent beauty of the wadi intimately tied together. The Zohar says that you can have a heart with a chamber of pain and a chamber of joy joined together. That is my heart. When you died, I couldn't eat anything for three days. My friends begged me to eat something. Finally, I said: "I'll eat watermelon." I didn't remember that I had eaten watermelon at your birth. But as I ate it, I remembered being in the hospital room with you the day after your birth. I nursed you and held you to me, and then ate the watermelon my friend Ella had brought me. As the sun rose and the birds called out to me, a chorus of cheeps and squawks, you and I nestled together like a mother bird in her nest with her baby bird, and I felt that the whole world was nursing or suckling. No

Author Biography

Sherri Mandell was born in New York and graduated from Cornell University, where she received her M.A. in creative writing. She taught writing at the University of Maryland and at Dean State. She is the author of Writers of the Holocaust, (Facts on File, 2000) and has written for numerous magazines and journals, including The Washington Post, The Denver Post and The Jerusalem Post. She moved to Israel in 1996, where she lives in Tekoa with her family, and is now director of The Koby Mandell Foundation Women's Healing Retreats for Bereaved Mothers and Widows

Table of Contents

PART ONE: THE CAVE,	1	(108)
Chapter one: The Cave,	3	(2)
Chapter two: The Vessel,	5	(4)
Chapter three: The New Land,	9	(4)
Chapter four: Contractions of Death,	13	(4)
Chapter five: Koby's Death,	17	(8)
Chapter six: The Messiah and the Day that Koby was Born,	25	(6)
Chapter seven: Elijah's Appearance at Koby's Circumcision,	31	(10)
Chapter eight: The World-to-Come,	41	(4)
Chapter nine: Potato Chips at the Funeral,	45	(6)
Chapter ten: The Shiva and the Faces of God,	51	(6)
Chapter eleven: The Canyon and the Spring,	57	(8)
Chapter twelve: Entering the Sabbath,	65	(6)
Chapter thirteen: Levels of Pain,	71	(2)
Chapter fourteen: The Bullet and the Jewelry Box,	73	(8)
Chapter fifteen: The Shooting Star,	81	(4)
Chapter sixteen: Koby's Birthday Becoming Holy Beggars,	85	(4)
Chapter seventeen: The Bar Mitzvah,	89	(4)
Chapter eighteen: The Cricket,	93	(4)
Chapter nineteen: The Broken Glass,	97	(2)
Chapter twenty: Shimon Bar Yochai,	99	(6)
Chapter twenty-one: Guilt,	105	(4)
PART TWO: THE BIRD'S NEST,	109	(118)
Chapter twenty-two: Hope,	111	(4)
Chapter twenty-three: Bird Stories,	115	(8)
Chapter twenty-four: Thanksgiving Blessings,	123	(4)
Chapter twenty-five: First Born,	127	(6)
Chapter twenty-six: Chanukah,	133	(4)
Chapter twenty-seven: Faith,	137	(6)
Chapter twenty-eight: The Language of God,	143	(4)
Chapter twenty-nine: Signs and Dreams,	147	(4)
Chapter thirty: The Family,	151	(4)
Chapter thirty-one: The Reporters,	155	(4)
Chapter thirty-two: Pain and Forgiveness,	159	(2)
Chapter thirty-three: Gods Silence,	161	(4)
Chapter thirty-four: A Hierarchy of Suffering,	165	(2)
Chapter thirty-five: Purim,	167	(6)
Chapter thirty-six: My Grandmothers Mantra,	173	(4)
Chapter thirty-seven: Humility,	177	(4)
Chapter thirty-eight: Heaven,	181	(2)
Chapter thirty-nine: The Deer,	183	(4)
Chapter forty: Our Wedding Anniversary,	187	(4)
Chapter forty-one: Not Knowing,	191	(2)
Chapter forty-two: Passover 2002,	193	(4)
Chapter forty-three: Jacobs Ladder,	197	(4)
Chapter forty four: Another Shimon Bar Yochai Story,	201	(2)
Chapter forty five: The Koby Mandell Foundation,	203	(4)
Chapter forty-six: Gulls on the Beach,	207	(4)
Chapter forty-seven: The Bird's Nest,	211	(8)
Chapter forty-eight: A Year On,	219	(4)
Chapter forty-nine: Koby's Articles,	223	(4)
Appendix: About the Foundation,	227	(2)
Bibliography,	229	(2)
Acknowledgments,	231