Fifteen months ago, on October 7, 2023, Arab Muslim terrorists, associating as Hamas, broke a ceasefire with Israel by murdering 1,200 innocent Jews, including peace activists, at an all-night “nova festival” and regular families in their nearby kibbutz homes. They murdered, they raped live women before murdering them, and raped women they had already murdered. They beheaded men, women, and children, sliced off body parts while their victims still were alive, and burned living, breathing babies to death in kitchen ovens.

Our grandmother, Sarah Richter, was suddenly taken from us on January 27 – kaf zayin Teves. Bubby Sarah, as she was lovingly known, evokes the image of a woman larger than life. She exemplified the qualities of a baalas bitachon on the highest level, combined with a simchas ha’chayim, and a stunning ability to connect with friends and family alike, on a warm and personal level.

The seventh of Adar was the day on which Moshe Rabbeinu was born, and also the day on which he died exactly 120 years later. Tzadikim were often given the ability to completely live out their years. It is written that Moshe passed away through the “Kiss of Hashem.”

The community gathered at the Bukharian Jewish Congregation of Briarwood to hear an important lecture by Rebbetzin Slovie Jungreis Wolff, well known inspirational speaker and daughter of the late Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, on how to raise children in today’s world. She pointed out that if you are parenting today, it means you were parenting during a pandemic and during October 7, an ongoing war in Israel, and rampant anti-Semitism. Our people were kidnapped and murdered. How do we explain that to our children?