Many years ago, at our engagement party, my husband gave a Dvar Torah explaining the concept of Arichas Yamim. He said that often people think of Arichas Yamim as a long life. However, if it meant a long life it should have said Arichas Shanim, translating as lengthy years and not Arichas Yamim which means lengthy days. My husband went on to explain that we are each given the gift of life to accomplish not just a great many things, but greatness in achieving our potential and fulfilling our mission. The ideal is to use our days to the fullest. Our days should be long because they are filled to the brim with Torah learning, prayer and acts of kindness. We are not guaranteed a long life of years. Rather, we are encouraged and blessed so that we live long days and that each day we are granted to be filled with Torah and Mitzvos.
This past week has been one of the longest and hardest of our lives. As Aunt, Uncle and cousin to our dear nephew, Donny Morris, Nachman Daniel Ben Aryeh Tzvi, Z”L, we have shared in the pain of our brother and sister in law and nephew and niece. Although we are not part of the nuclear family, we are part of the extended family, and we too have been showered with love, support and kindness from people all over the world and from all stages of our lives. It has been heartwarming, comforting and indeed strengthening for our family.
Someone commented to me, from a pained heart in the right place, that Donny’s death was senseless and that his death was a waste of a beautiful life.
As I processed his statement, I questioned the accuracy of his sentiments.
Donny’s death makes no sense to us, true, but only because we are left down here in this world. It is not senseless, except that we don’t and can’t understand it because we don’t truly understand Hashem’s ways or His plan for our people. But that doesn’t mean it is senseless. We just haven’t been privy to the reasoning.
The loss of Donny is real and painful, but his life was anything but wasted. As my husband has repeated many times over during this week, there are people who live long lives with many years, but on their deathbed do not know what they lived for. And then there are people, like Donny, who were only here for a short amount of time, who truly had Arichas Yamim, long days filled with Torah learning, prayer and acts of kindness and was truly an inspiration to so many. There was no waste.
Would we have liked for Donny to have Arichas Shanim, long years, along with his Arichas Yamim, long days? Of course. But no one asked our opinion.
Someone asked me how can we be comforted? This is hard and easy at the same time. Hard, because a loss is never something you get over, however, you do build up the strength to move forward, never forgetting, but finding ways to continue to remember. And that is the easy part.
You see, if you take a loss and look at it from a perspective of, I can’t understand it, and therefore it is senseless, then yes, it would be wasted and it would be most difficult to find comfort.
But if you look at a loss with sadness and pain, but then you look for ways to make it part of you and how you live your life going forward, the person will never be forgotten.
And not only will he be remembered and not forgotten, but you will also make sure that the beautiful life he lived continues to be meaningful and inspiring to not only his family, but to people all over the world for generations to come.
And therein lies the comfort.
If each one of us looks inside ourselves and finds one thing that resonates with us about Donny, whether it is his love of learning Torah, davening or doing acts of kindness, and make it part of our day, and truly part of our lives, then he will never be forgotten and your good deeds in his merit, will continue to bring purpose and meaning to the beautiful life he lived.
And that brings us tremendous comfort.
I ask each of you to look for ways to find meaning and inspiration from Donny’s long and purposeful days. And with each good deed we all do, we are truly giving Donny Arichas Shanim along with his Yamim, as he will not be forgotten and we will all continue to be inspired by him.
May we only share in happy occasions going forward.