l'ilui Nishmas Bracha Elisheva bas Avraham

This post is l'ilui Nishmas Bracha Elisheva bas Avraham, inspired by my Tehillim group.

I had a beloved friend named Bracha Elisheva. Today is her 3^rd yahrzeit.

I always think about her at this time of year, but not just because of her yahrzeit. When she was alive and healthy I always thought of her in the Esseres Yomei Teshuva. She lived and breathed Teshuva. She led hundreds if not thousands of neshamos back to Judaism. She was lively, fun, exuberant, and thirsted deeply for closeness with Hashem.

At her levaya (she passed away from the machla when her first baby was a year old), her husband told a few stories from when they were shidduch dating that made him realize that she was not an ordinary person.

Once, their 'date' was that he would drive her to the airport (she was always on the go, flying back and forth for things kiuruv-related). She insisted that they stop at the Kosel. He had no idea why, especially looking at the time. And she answered, in her unforgettable voice which I wish you could have heard, 'YOU CAN'T LEAVE ERETZ YISROEL WITHOUT DOING TESHUVA!'. As if everyone just knew that. He also found out that her favorite chag was Yom Kippur. That part, I already knew.

We were madrichot together for the Heritage House Davening, and we used to stand together in shul. And I saw first-hand what it meant to her to daven on Yom Kippur. She would take the front row and drape a tichel over her head (like a tallis)  to block out anything in her peripheral vision. And she would proceed to cry, with a smile, and speak out loud, earnestly, to Hashem for the entire Yom Tov. And her elation, her illuminating presense, before, during, and after Yom Kippur could light up the darkest of the dark.

I've spoken to a lot of people in the last few days about Teshuva and a lot of us have a lot of reasons why we haven't gotten around to it. I wanted to just say, as the time closes in on us, that this is the time to focus on ourselves a bit- Hashem is handing out thousand-dollar-bills to anyone who wants to take just a minute to clean out their system. Again, the 4 steps are:

1.      Abandon the behavior/sin
2. Regret it
3. Commit to change in the future
4. Apologize/confess

And I know if my friend Bracha Elisheva were here today, she wouldn't just be taking advantage of this, she would be persuading everyone around her to be their best and do their best because Hashem is wonderful and there is nothing in this world to compare to being close to Him.