Baruch Dayan HaEmes- Bracha Elisheva Bas Kayla

amother

Sat, Sep 26 2009, 5:16 pm

the following was sent by her husband Jordan

Bracha Elisheva bas Kayla, the holiest woman I will know, was nifter this morning at 9:30 am in Hadassah Ein Kerem. The levaya will be tonight. I don't know anything else.

Thank you for being so supportive over such a length of time. I have no idea how I can live beyond this moment, but somehow Yosef and I are meant to do it together.

Please remain in contact and please keep fulfilling any mitzvah you may have taken on in Elisheva's merit.

Jordan

bubby

Sat, Sep 26 2009, 8:06 pm

BD"E

greenfire

Sat, Sep 26 2009, 8:19 pm

sorry for her loss

chavamom

Sat, Sep 26 2009, 9:07 pm

Nevermind - I figured it out.

Last edited by chavamom on Sat, Sep 26 2009, 9:13 pm; edited 1 time in total

Mimisinger

Sat, Sep 26 2009, 9:12 pm

BDE

I have seen this displayed all over facebook. Who was she?

chavamom

Sat, Sep 26 2009, 9:15 pm

Mimisinger wrote:

BDE

I have seen this displayed all over facebook. Who was she?

I'm assuming (b/c there is a name added since I got the original info) it is the young woman who was a former Neve student who was diagnosed with a brain tumor recently.

ra_mom

Sat, Sep 26 2009, 9:38 pm

Baruch Dayon HaEmes

amother

Sun, Sep 27 2009, 12:09 am

BDE
I am seeing this all over, who was she? what happened?

amother

Sun, Sep 27 2009, 12:31 am

amother wrote:

BDE
I am seeing this all over, who was she? what happened?

BDE. Oh, such sad, sad news.
DH and I both work with her husband Jordan. He is one of the kindest, good, people we know.
She fell ill shortly after the birth of their son, Yosef, who was born almost a year ago.
May Jordan and Yosef know of no further sorrow and may Bracha Elisheva's memory be a blessing for them and their entire family.

ray family

Sun, Sep 27 2009, 12:46 am

I was w/ her in Neve a bunch of years ago.
she was one of these amazing women who was always filled w/ so much energy and happiness.
there was always a smile on her face.
she was constantly giving to others.
she was really an amazing inspiration.
from what I know she was diagnosed w/ cancer right after her son was born about a year ago.
it totally ravaged her body.
there were so many pple that were effected by her.
even through her illness she continued to inspire and impress others.
may her family be comforted betoch avlei tzion v'yerushalayim

ChossidMom

Sun, Sep 27 2009, 1:38 am

Bracha Elisheva was my sister's upstairs neighbor. They were very close with her and on Friday my sister was very upset as the situation had gotten much worse. On Motzei Shabbos she told me the terrible news and was just crying and crying. It is so, so sad.
She was a special person.
I never met her and Jordan but I hope he has a real nechama.

amother

Sun, Sep 27 2009, 3:37 pm

I didn't really know her, but I always saw her around the Neve campus when I was there. She was always so energetic and full of life. Baruch Dayan Emes- this is a real loss for klal Yisroel.

amother

Tue, Sep 29 2009, 4:48 am

I also didn't know Bracha Elisheva personally, but knew her just from being on the Neve campus. I echo the previous posters in saying that she was always so full of life, so bubbly, so enthusiastic about her Yiddishkeit. It was hard to not know who she was. She knew everybody and infused so much energy and life into her surroundings.
I had no idea about her illness. I just heard the ram kol on Thurs night and thought to myself 'I only know one Bracha Elisheva' she's just the type of person that sticks out in your brain. Sure enough, it was her. I've been very moved by what happened. I can't stop thinking about it. How such a young person, so full of life, is suddenly not with us anymore.
Does anyone know other details? Did they know this was coming or was it sudden? I see now that she had an operation in August that they thought was successful. I guess it wasn't...
How did it begin? Was she having headaches? I somehow feel this compulsive need to know all the details about what happened to her. She has touched so many lives...

ray family

Tue, Sep 29 2009, 5:15 am

I don't know all the details of what happened
and if I'm wrong on any of it s/o please correct me
from what I understand she got married less than 2 years ago
during her pregnancy she noticed s/t on her toe and was told to wait until after giving birth to deal w/ it.
it got worse and worse to the point where she could barely walk
by the time it was diagnosed she already had stage 4 cancer
I don't know the type of cancer just that it was a soft tissue cancer.
the drs didnt expect her to make it even this long- less than a year
her baby is now 11 mos old
there have been some gemachs and a money fund that has been set up to help her husband w/ the medical bills
through this whole thing she continued to have a tremendous impact on pple
she was so positive.
she passed away on shabbos- her hebrew birthday...
Hashem yerachaim
we should only hear good things

amother

Tue, Sep 29 2009, 5:17 am

ray family - thank you for posting.
I thought they were saying she was having brain surgery...?

ChossidMom

Tue, Sep 29 2009, 5:25 am

She had surgery on a brain tumor in August. I posted a Tehillim thread that day. I believe her son is 7 months old and that she was diagnosed with a brain tumor right after he was born.

ray family

Tue, Sep 29 2009, 6:55 am

the tumor was found later on.
her son is 11 mos old.
I saw him last night.
what an adorable kid!!

amother

Tue, Sep 29 2009, 6:58 am

Was she conscious & alert in her last days? Did she get to say goodbye to her family?

tzatza

Tue, Sep 29 2009, 1:54 pm

OMG.
BDE. Sad

ray family

Thu, Oct 01 2009, 4:33 am

this was sent out by Reb. Tzipporah Heller

Dear Friends,

I have to begin the New Year with tragic news. The battle that Bracha Elisheva was fighting is over. She was very much wanted both in Heaven and on earth, and the heavenly host prevailed.

I was with her the day before Rosh Hashanah. When I reached her house, she wasn’t even home. She was well enough and mobile enough to have gone down to a neighbor for a chat. I called her by my cell phone, and she said “just a moment”. I thought that she was in bed, and no one was there to open the door. I began to regret coming, when she clearly wasn’t up to a visit. Then the elevator door opened, and there she was, in full color, big as life, looking like any other woman does the day before a major holiday when a visitor comes. She was very much her lively self (as a matter of fact, she served me a drink and cookies. I saw that the effort both exhausted her and vivified her at the same time).

As we spoke, however, a dark presence entered. She told me that things were going down fast. She was having moments when she collapsed and lost control of her body, but for the most part she was feeling relatively well. We both understood that this new development meant that the malignancy had spread, and that the treatments that she was receiving were no longer effective. In fact, although the doctors saw her surgery as a success, and said that they had gotten out everything that they saw, her condition never really improved. She had pain, an unwelcome guest who had never come to stay. Only with the intervention of friends who knew other doctors who specialized in pain control, was that great enemy, constant unbearable pain, silenced and almost defeated.

We spoke about what Rosh Hashanah means. She said that she was ready to go wherever Hashem leads her, and that wherever He takes her is good. While neither of us spoke overtly of death, I did suggest that she make some videos for her little boy. At worst, it would be a memento of what she could later call “the bad year”. She didn’t protest the idea, and when I left, she was completely serene and in the best mood imaginable. Friday, Sara Nisha Kohen called and told me that she was in the hospital and that she had lost mobility but seemed aware. Motzaei Shabbos, almost as soon as Shabbos was over, Rabbi Gershonfeld (Rosh Yeshiva of Machon Shlomo, where her husband learned before Machon Yaakov) called with the terrible news. Her burial took place the same night, at midnight. Rabbi Brown spoke first. I had no idea of how close they were. He called her passing “the death of his oldest daughter”, and was barely able to finish the eloquent and moving eulogy that he wrote. Rabbi Chalkowski spoke, and so did a gentleman from Detroit who was the first one to open his home to her at the beginning of Elisheva’s journey. I didn’t catch his name (I did hear that his first name is Gary, but he is an older, dignified, and distinguished man and I am sure that this is not the best way to make mention of his speech). Rabbi Chalkowski summed up what everyone else said very succinctly. She was always growing and aiming higher, and always full of light.

The image sticks with me. So does the image of the shiva. I want Erev Yom Kippur, which was the only day that her mother, Claire, and her husband could mourn formally since the coming of the holiday ends the shiva. The room was silent. Neither of them had words nor wanted words, they just sat quietly and let themselves feel the support that came from everyone filling the living room that had been transformed into a chapel of grief.

Yom Kippur was almost organically connected to the events of the previous day. The sages tell us that a tzadik’s death is atonement. It is for this reason that the Torah reading for Yom Kippur is the narrative of Aaron’s son’s death. What was Aaron’s response to the double tragedy of the death of his two sons? The Torah tells us that he was silent, and that his unspoken acceptance is his great praise. He made no pretense of penetrating Hashem’s mind and will and reducing it to something a human can grasp.

How are we to take the death of someone so young, so spirited, so full of life and with so much to live for?

The Midrash in Shmot Rabbah presents us with a parable. Once there was a king. He had many servants who did their jobs faithfully and with great loyalty. They were assigned to work land adjoining the palace. One day the king called one of his servants aside. He told him that he was planning to travel to see the great and beautiful gardens that were in a distant land, and that he wanted his servant to accompany him. The journey took a long time, but eventually the king and his servant returned. By that time the other servants had completed their assigned tasks. The king paid them all, including the servant who he had taken with them. Some of the other servants protested. “Why should he get the same pay as we do when he worked so much less?” The king answered, ”He deserves payment because it was I who took him away from his tasks.”

In the same way we can question how a person can be taken when so much is left to be done. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the kind of family Elisheva would have raised, or the kind of hospitality she would have offered, or the kind of kiruv she would have done. When I visited her in the hospital the day after what turned out to be her unsuccessful brain surgery, she was up and about and walked me to the exit. This didn’t surprise anyone else. They were used to her. She brought her dancing shoes with her to the hospital, just in case there would be someone with enough pizzazz to join her. Can you imagine the stories she would have told? The King will give her full reward for what was undone just as He will reward her for what is done.

When I came home from the synagogue after the fast, I was in a very Bracha Elisheva state. “YES!” I said to my rather startled family. “Let’s turn on the music and start planning Succot. Who will be coming? What will we serve? Let’s get into the simcha!”