Rachel Goldberg-Polin

That something is faith.

And just four months ago, another parent, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, sat on this bimah and considered where her resilience comes from, where she finds strength and faith.

When asked about her faith, she spoke about the daily morning prayers and one we recite at the start of the morning service, "Modah ani lefanecha melech chai vekayam shehechezarta bi nishmati." Thank you, God, for giving back my soul to me.

You have tremendous faith in me.

So people have been through terrible things.

There's Rachel Goldberg and the terrible thing, losing her son, Hershey.

All the different things that have happened in Israel and around the world, terrible things, Brighton, in Sydney and so on, or Manchester, near her home.

But there are different states of consciousness.

Now on to today's episode.

Last year around this time, Rachel Goldberg-Polin joined us right before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to help us understand the days of awe, what Chuva really means, what we are doing when we hear the shofar, why Yom Kippur is not simply about saying, "I'm sorry," and why the real test of these holidays is how we live during the rest of the year.

But the Jewish holiday season does not end with Yom Kippur.

Almost immediately, we move into Sukkot, and then at the end of Sukkot, into Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

And Susan and I watched it at nine in the morning in Maryland.

And the whole next day, I listened to hours and hours of recordings of Rachel Goldberg-Polin talking all around the world during the 328 days in which Hirsch was held hostage alive.

And the day after that, Itai strung together the bits of recording that I had found and saved and listened to.

And we put what is going to follow today in our feed back then, two years ago.

And the morning when we learned that Hirsch was gone seems like so very, very long ago.

And it also seems like it was just here.

And we have now Rachel Goldberg-Polin's beautiful book, When We See You Again, it is called.

And we've learned from it that the book that Hirsch left on his nightstand, he did not need to take it with him because he was going just to dance one night through and he'd be back early the next morning.

This is one mother's story.

Her name is Rachel Goldberg-Polin.

She's an American Israeli who moved to Jerusalem eighteen years ago with her husband, John, and their three children.

Her only son, Hersh, was badly wounded and taken hostage by Hamas on October seventh.

Rachel and John worked tirelessly to bring Hersh and the other hostages home.

But on the three hundred and twenty-eighth day of his captivity, Hersh was executed in a tunnel in Gaza.

When we met her earlier this year, Rachel Goldberg-Polin told us that now, like so many others, she's trying to figure out how to live after her child has died.

To know that your child is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused, is maimed, and that's an excruciating form of suffering.

Today, we begin with a poignant moment at the United Nations.

On Friday, August twenty-first, the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of murdered Gaza hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, represented Middle Eastern victims of terrorism.

In a recorded video message, she shared the harrowing story of her son, Hersh, who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October seventh, twenty twenty-three, lost an arm, and was later executed.

His body was returned to her after three hundred and thirty days.

We begin with a deeply personal and globally significant address at the United Nations.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, spoke on Friday, August twenty-first, marking the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism.

She became the first Israeli representative in a role that has previously been held by Palestinians.

Through a recorded video, Rachel shared the harrowing story of her son, Hersh, who was kidnapped by Hamas on October seventh, twenty twenty-three, and later executed.

She described the unimaginable pain of reclaiming his body after three hundred and thirty days.

Drawing on correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Goldberg-Polin spoke about the human tendency toward conflict, urging civilization to choose wisdom and act rightly.

She concluded with a solemn message, "The choice is hard, but the choice is ours.

Shall we take the easy way out and follow blindly, even as we march ourselves right over a cliff? Or shall we push ourselves to live up to the most elevated challenges and goals that are presented?" Her powerful testimony aimed to draw attention to Israeli victims of terror.