Do you trust that things will always work out in the end? I like to tell people that I can believe in this idea as a microcosm for myself but not for others. For me, God is in the details, helping us find our way. With that being said, it can be very difficult to see that when we are in a valley or at the bottom of a roller coaster.

In his chapter on bitachon, trust in God, Alan Morinis, who we were pleased to have as our synagogue last month, writes the following:

“But even assuming that you do have a sense of relationship with HaShem, how could you possibly lean trustingly on a God who allows a million children to be killed in the Holocaust, who sweeps 150,000 people to their death in a tsunami, who permits AIDS and smallpox and ALS (I’d add COVID), who rains fire on the innocent and allows the guilty to die comfortable and secure in their beds? If this is what our omniscient, omnipotent divinity does, then it seems you’d be crazy to trust that God. And perhaps you’d conclude that the sum total of the suffering, evil and madness in the world is sure proof that there really is no God at all.”[1]

When people suffer unbearable losses, they often turn in one of two directions: inward or outward. I want to share stories of people who first turned inward and then outward. First is Sherri Mandell. Her son Koby played hooky from school with his friend Yosef Ishran, going hiking in the Judean Desert and the young age of 13. They went missing and were later found having “been bound, stabbed and beaten to death with rocks.”[2] Sherri did not know where to turn; fortunately, her good friend Shira also happened to be a grief counselor. She shared that the infusion of spirituality into her life was one of her greatest surprises; that she was literally “hit on he head” with it, in the form of birds that kept bumping into her, dying on her doorstep, flying into her house and care, all of them as if coming from a message from Koby saying, “I am here.” This helped give her the strength to write The Blessings of the Broken Heart which received the National Jewish Book Award, and The Road to Resilience: from Courage to Celebration. When she realized the teachings of the inner yearnings of her heart were a comfort to many, Sherri turned outward, creating the Koby Mandel Foundation to help bereaved families. Sheri writes that “each moment is a miracle and an agony. A miracle that the world exists in all of its glory. An agony that this world is one of suffering and pain.”[3] In one of the most painful moments that I can ever imagine, the loss of a child, Sherri became a resource for others who are bereft and who have lost loved ones.

One also never knows the impact their story can make. Roz Rothstein told me that upon seeing the murder of baby Shalhevet Pas in pointblank range in March 2001 followed by the murder of Koby Mandell in May 2001, Roz and her husband Jerry saw no outrage within the Jewish community. They scheduled a meeting with the Los Angeles Jewish leaders for the Israel Emergency Alliance but saw that people would not commit to action. With friend Esther Renzer, they changed the name to Standwithus and hosted their first rally in July. Previously they had sent videos of Jihad for Kids to the Los Angeles media outlets with no response. Then September 11 came and the media started coming to their house. Standwithus set a mission based on two principles: fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel. Today it is an organization with 15 departments on 6 continents and has become known for its educational resources for middle school kids and older, the Title VI lawsuits it enacts against universities for their antisemitism and for being a nonpartisan organization. I used excerpts from the Haggadah that Jerry Rothstein created at my home Seder. Murders, as horrific and unjust as they are, can leave a legacy to fight for a safer environment for future generations.[4]

The third and final story I want to share is of Alan Morinis, a Rhodes Scholar who began in the film industry. After his business collapsed, Alan said, ““There was no way I could look at that except to see that I had a lot of responsibility for that, and the result was it kinda blew me open.”[5] Alan had two kids, a wife and a mortgage and needed to figure out a way to provide for his family. Rather than turning outward, he turned inward, seeking out Rabbi Yechiel Yitzhak Perr z”l and discovering through him an approach to ethical strengthening called Mussar, which had become diminished when many Yeshivot that taught it perished in the Holocaust.[6] Alan did not set out to found an institution but rather to get his life back on track. Later he saw it as an opportunity to be a resource onto others through the spiritual teachings ingrained in him, founding The Mussar Institute and writing books which would guide others through ethical refining middot, or spiritual characteristics in each and every soul.

How do we handle those times when it feels our world crashes down? It could be the death of a person, of an idea, or the way we were living our lives? Part of life is trusting the unpredictable and having faith that we are here for a reason. It involves putting ourselves out there, taking risks with no guarantees and having trust in the outcome. The Koby Mandell Foundation, like Standwithus, reliee primarily on the generosity of donors. The same is true for The Mussar Institute. I was amazed when Alan refused to set an honorarium, saying “Whatever the community can provide.”

When I’m having a rough time, or hitting a wall, I think of these examples, and they give me hope and inspiration. I realize that so much more is possible than we think-all it takes is fortitude, courage and a little faith in creating a better future. I can’t answer why I’ve seen babies dies nor can I answer why God took any of the loved ones who we are here today to remember. The losses of parents, siblings, uncles and aunts, grandparents and children leave us bereft and in grief, with questions we cannot answer and at times feelings of sadness, anger, and frustration. These are real feelings which we need to acknowledge-we all have them. At the same time, let us look towards those who give us the hope and the courage that enable us to continue each and every day. The greatest danger is that we let our grief and our anger stop us from moving forward and continuing to try to make our world a better place. Yizkor enables us to remember our loved ones-the lives they lived, the values they taught us and the experiences we shared with them. Not every experience was rosy and many of them might have been difficult, yet I hope that each of us will look back to the moments of joy that we shared and that it will cause us to smile, laugh, shed a few tears, center us and give us hope for our futureq. As we remember those from our past, so too may we bring those memories, those experiences, and those values into the present, as we join together as a community to pray on this final day of Passover.

[1] Alan Morinis, Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar (Boulder, CO: Trumpeter Books, 2008), pg. 210.

[2] Matthew Kalman (20 June 2001). “Two Israeli teenagers stoned to death”. USA Today. Retrieved 24 March 2011.

[3] Michael Dickson and Dr. Naomi L. Baum Isresilience: What Israelis Can Teach the World Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing, 2020).

[4] Speech from Roz Rothstein, Standwithus Conference, March 18, 2026.

[5] https://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/128469/selfie-spirituality/

[6] You can read more about it in his book Climbing Jacob’s Ladder