My Daughter’s Evacuee Students Return Home
Earlier today, exactly 4 months after they fled for their lives and took refuge in a small Buddhist community 3 hours from the Gaza Envelope, a handful of evacuee families returned home. For the last 3 months, my daughter, Hadas, was the devoted teacher of a group of 6 4-8 years old evacuees. These children loved their little school in the miniature bamboo hut so much that every morning, when she would arrive at 8:30 AM, all of Hadas’ students would already be there waiting for her. This school provided a small but crucial corner of stability, routine, and nurturing under Hadas’ loving care within the chaos of the last few months.
Yesterday I made the long drive down to the Arava to pick up Hadas. And I got to meet her students and their remarkable families.
These holy families of Breslov baalei teshuva ended up bringing so much light to this Buddhist community, creating family-like bonds with the monks and volunteers and other residents, some of whom I saw shed tears of emotion as the families said goodbye.
The families turned their galus into a shlichus, putting up mezuzas, teaching Rebbe Nachman Torahs during mealtimes to the volunteers so eager to learn, setting up a small shul complete with an aron kodesh and sefer Torah (thanks to the local Chabad rabbi), even making a bar mitzvah for the 23-year-old son of the monastery’s director. Seeing the revolution they made in this Buddhist community after fleeing the massacre is like seeing the embodiment of Rebbe Nachman’s Torah: Within everything bad there is a point of good.
Hadas will also be travelling to join the families in their home community, at least in the beginning, to help her students adjust to their old-new lives. It is hard to imagine Hadas’ adorable young students heading back to the homes where they so narrowly escaped Hamas’ barbaric murderous rampage on October 7th.
May Hashem bless these families and watch over and shine His light upon them and all the evacuees as they slowly return home.
AMEN!