A Tishah B’Av Anthology

Shani Pruzansky

How many tears can one day hold?
How much suffering can one
nation bear?
How much darkness can one
exile bring?
On this one day a year,
When we immerse ourselves in the overwhelming pain of galus,
Let us say, Enough.
We’ve shed oceans of tears,
We’ve borne centuries of suffering,
We’ve stumbled through so much darkness.
And now we say, Enough.
Please,
May it be Your will
That You turn our tears
Into cries of pure joy,
Our suffering
Into the greatest celebration,
And the thickest darkness
Into the blinding light of Geulah.
We can’t do this anymore.

 

In this compilation, The Voice brings you an inside look at various tzaros affecting our community through the lens of those on the frontlines for the klal.

Spotlight on Chai Lifeline

 

Chai Lifeline case file:

 

The week before her son’s transplant, she barely slept.

Fear. Anxiety. Hope. Her emotions lurched from one to the next like a roller coaster.

Then she looked at her calendar.

Tomorrow morning. Her daughter’s siddur play.

She made some calls, figured out the logistics, and found herself pulling into her driveway late that night, tired but relieved. She would be there. For one morning, she could sit in a school auditorium and just be a mother.

She fell asleep telling herself it would be fine.

It wasn’t. At seven in the morning, her five-year-old was in tears.

“I don’t have matching tights! My costume is going to be ruined!”

The mother searched. Every drawer, every bag. Her daughter was right. There was not a single pair of wearable black tights in the house.

No store would be open for hours. She hadn’t slept properly in days, her son was in a hospital bed waiting for a transplant, and right now her daughter was falling apart over tights.

Some things are small. Some things just feel small. At that moment, the tights were everything.

This is just a peek into a suffering family’s life, and we try to support them in every way we can.

About Chai Lifeline

 

Chai Lifeline supports families facing serious illness, helping them maintain stability during this difficult time. We provide respite, meals, transportation, and professional support groups along with a wide range of additional assistance.

Our crisis intervention team is on the frontlines of any sudden tragedy affecting the community, offering support and guidance.

By the numbers

 

Chai Lifeline is currently servicing over 1,000 families in the greater Lakewood area. Unfortunately, this number has grown astronomically in recent years. This is largely due to the community’s growth as well as CHOP becoming the number-one children’s hospital for cancer in the country. The NICU in CHOP is also the largest in the country. On an average day, over 10 percent of the babies in CHOP’s NICU are from Lakewood. This is an intense NICU, where the most critically ill babies end up, and it’s not a number we should take lightly.

Our crisis intervention team has also been far too busy in recent years. There are too many young deaths, too many people being snatched away in their prime, too many orphaned children and parents grieving the loss of a child. Sometimes, it feels like an avalanche.

This keeps us going

 

We have far, far too many active cases in the community right now, but at the same time, it’s inspiring to see the sheer volume of volunteers we have. Chai Lifeline has a full-time staff of 35 to 45 as well as 1,000 part-time volunteers who will drop everything to offer rides to the hospital, cook meals for families, collect toys for kids, serve as case managers, assemble spa packages for mothers, and so much more.

 

People should know

 

It’s important for all of us to be there for our children during these difficult times, as it can be very frightening for a child to hear about one local tragedy after another. It’s our job as parents to constantly remind them that Hashem is watching out for us and that the world is a safe and secure place.

 

This is bringing Mashiach

 

A case manager was speaking with a mother in the hospital when she noticed that the woman’s phone screen kept lighting up with a call from “home.”

“Why don’t you answer that and see what your kids want?” she asked.

The mother sighed. “I know why they’re calling. It’s hot outside, and they want me to get them Rita’s, but I can’t. I’m stuck here in the hospital.”

The case manager quickly got on the case, and within minutes, a volunteer was on the way to pick up Rita’s ices for this family. When she arrived at the house with the sweet, slushy treat, she told the excited kids that it was from their mother.

 

How the klal can help

 

Before we do anything for a family going through this tzaar, we need to be there for them. Empathize with them; feel their pain. Tell them you’re thinking of them and that you are with them in this difficult time.

 

A Tishah B’Av message

 

When we think of Tishah B’Av, we remember that what gets us through galus is knowing that Hashem is with us in our tzaar. “Imo Anochi…”—He feels our pain. Before we can rebuild the Beis Hamikdash, we need to emulate Hashem and to have the capacity to truly feel another Yid’s pain. If we can find it within ourselves to feel what our brothers are feeling, to hold their tears and share their burden, we can help bring the Geulah.

 

 

 

Spotlight on Bonei Olam

 

A Bonei Olam case file

 

Cancer had already taken so much from them.

The husband had undergone treatment years earlier without taking any fertility preservation measures, believing he would never need them. Later, his wife had been told she would never be able to have children. Together, they carried what seemed like the impossible.

Still, they refused to give up.

Doctor after doctor told them there was nothing to be done. The answer was always the same: no. The couple was crushed.

Then they learned of an experimental treatment that offered only the smallest glimmer of hope. It wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t even a likelihood. It was simply a chance.

They decided that a chance was enough.

Against every expectation, the treatment succeeded, and the couple recently welcomed their first child into the world.

Some stories defy medical predictions. They remind us that even when every door appears to be closed, Hashem can open one no one imagined. Bonei Olam is there for so many families, holding their hands through their infertility journey.

 

About Bonei Olam

 

We provide funding for infertility treatments. We also pair every couple with a Bonei Olam counselor, who is there to offer emotional support and guidance every step of the way. Another important aspect of what we do is provide halachic guidance for couples experiencing infertility, as the halachos in this area are extremely complex and nuanced. In addition, through our funding, we’ve become the leading source of fertility research for the community.

Bonei Olam by the numbers

 

To date, 15,000 babies have been born through Bonei Olam’s direct financial assistance. As the community with the youngest population, Lakewood has the fastest-growing budget among all of our chapters. There are currently close to 1,000 active cases in Lakewood; this number has grown tremendously in the last few years.

Ninety percent of insurance plans do not cover infertility, and the 10 percent that do will not cover more advanced treatments. Fertility treatments are prohibitively expensive, with standard plans costing anywhere from $18,000 to $25,000 per cycle.

 

This is bringing Mashiach

 

In Bonei Olam’s V’zakeini project, women from the community donate a dollar each week at hadlakas neiros and say a special tefillah for a woman waiting for a child. These dollars add up and can fund two full treatments a week. There’s also something deeply moving about thousands of women pausing at the same moment each week to daven for someone they will never meet. It’s a beautiful expression of how Klal Yisrael carries one another. Many couples have gone on to have children without medical treatment, attributing their yeshuah to the power of those tefillos.

 

A child is priceless

 

Bonei Olam is constantly opening new divisions, as new solutions and treatments are always being found. Sometimes, an entire branch, which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund, will be established just to help four children enter the world. A prime example of this is a recently discovered transplant, which costs close to half a million dollars. B’chasdei Hashem, several women were able to receive these transplants through Bonei Olam and have become mothers.

 

Unseen challenges of infertility

 

We live in a community where kids are the center of everything. A woman cannot go out on Shabbos afternoon without a baby in a stroller or sit on a park bench without watching a kid playing. Our lives revolve around our children, and for couples still waiting to become parents, that reality can be especially painful. It can feel as though life is happening all around them while they’re left waiting on the sidelines.

What’s a Pesach Seder without a toddler stumbling through the Mah Nishtanah or a preschooler plotting to steal the afikoman?

What’s Simchas Torah without a little boy to toss into the air during “Moshe Emes” or a little girl dragging a sack of nosh nearly as big as she is?

What’s Purim without children to dress up in matching costumes and then to bring to their morah’s or rebbi’s house for an exciting exchange of mishloach manos?

In a world built around families, the absence of children can echo through every Yom Tov, every simchah, and every day in between.

Infertility is also a very private struggle. It’s something most people will not talk about, and no one knows if they are in middle of treatment, starting something new, or at the end of the road of a specific treatment and have just been told to give up all hope. They’re also dealing with early-morning appointments that no one knows about along with medications, shots, and endless rounds of tests.

 

This gives us chizuk

 

There’s a story we tell often at Bonei Olam, about a woman who had been in Block 10 in Auschwitz. This notorious block was home to victims who’d had doctors perform inhumane experiments on them that would render them infertile. This particular woman was put under the care of a Dr. Samuels, who was a non-religious Jew. When Dr. Samuels tried to “treat” her, this woman put up a fuss, kicking and screaming and spitting in his face. Another inmate passed by just then and looked at this woman.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “Whatever happens to you here, when we get out, I’ll marry you. You may not have children, but at least you’ll have a husband.”

And that’s exactly what happened. Both of them survived the war and eventually married, assuming they would never be able to have children. Miraculously, after a few months, the woman was expecting! It turned out that Dr. Samuels had only pretended to perform the experiments on her and had actually not rendered her infertile after all.

These stories teach us that someone can walk around for years thinking they will never have children, but Hashem has other plans.

 

How the klal can help

 

The most important thing is to be sensitive. Don’t look at someone differently just because they haven’t yet been blessed with a child. Don’t make them feel like they’re not part of society or like there’s something wrong with them.

It’s also important to remember that no tefillah goes to waste; I can’t  emphasize enough the value of every single tefillah. Please have these couples in mind when you daven, and in that zechus, may the sound of children’s laughter fill every empty home in Klal Yisrael.

 

Spotlight on Bridges

 

A Bridges case file

 

Mental illness tore this family apart almost overnight.

A young father suffered a psychiatric breakdown and entered a rehabilitation center in Florida. Back home, his wife, who had long struggled with her own mental health challenges, began spiraling. Before long, she lost her job, could no longer manage the household, and found herself unable to provide the physical and emotional stability her three young children desperately needed.

The family was suddenly scattered by circumstances no one had chosen.

The preteen son moved in with a volunteer family. His two younger siblings and their mother were welcomed into another home, where they found the stability, warmth, and routine they had been missing. On Sundays, the mother visits her oldest son, and she is working tirelessly with therapists, determined to heal and one day return home to raise her children herself.

No family imagines this will become their story. But when mental illness turns life upside down, sometimes what people need most is for others to quietly step in, hold things together, and help them find their way back. That is the kind of support Bridges strives to provide.

 

We operate two complementary organizations, each addressing a different stage of family crisis.

About Bridges

 

We support families experiencing a crisis when parents are temporarily unable to care for their children. We find short-term placements for their kids while helping the parents access the support necessary to heal and ultimately reunite with their children.

About Arches

 

Arches is a divorce support center. Whenever possible, we offer pre-divorce education, giving couples a clear understanding of the process, available options, and the long-term impact their decisions will have. Following divorce, trained parental coordinators help parents communicate more effectively.

 

Arches/Bridges by the numbers

 

There are approximately 120 divorces in Lakewood each year. While not every family requires our services, the demand continues to increase.

Five years ago, Bridges was serving just a handful of local families. Today, we support approximately 60 families each year, in addition to 46 teenagers and young adults through our transitional services. We are also preparing to open a home for 12 young women ages 18–23 who would otherwise have nowhere stable to live.

 

People should know

 

Divorce education should become the norm, not the exception. We prepare extensively for marriage, careers, and homeownership, yet one of life’s most difficult transitions is often entered with little guidance. Education gives families the opportunity to make thoughtful decisions, minimize unnecessary conflict, and protect their children throughout the process.

This keeps us going

 

More than 250 families have opened their homes through Bridges. Their extraordinary generosity, which allows these children to heal and ultimately grow into functional adults, reminds us that acts of kindness can impact generations.

Our respite volunteers don’t need to make as big of a commitment but they are no less incredible in their kindness. We’ll generally send kids to respite families for several hours after school for homework, dinner, and bathtime. In some cases, we’ll ask these families to take in a child, or several siblings, for a Yom Tov or Shabbos. We want these kids to see what a functional, healthy home looks like so they have an idea of what they themselves want to build in the future. Our ultimate goal is always to help the parents heal so the kids can move back into their own home.

How the klal can help

 

Never underestimate the impact of paying attention. When a child appears to be struggling, speaking with the family’s rav or encouraging the parents to seek support can change the trajectory of an entire family. We are also always looking for additional volunteers for respite and to be host families. If anyone wants to volunteer for this amazing chessed, please give us a call!

A Tisha B’Av  message

 

Tisha B’Av reminds us not only of what we’ve lost, but of our responsibility to care for one another while we await redemption. Every time someone opens their home, extends compassion, or helps carry another family’s burden, they strengthen Klal Yisrael. I believe those acts of selflessness bring us one step closer to Mashiach.

 

 

Spotlight on Ohel Sarala

 

 

An Ohel Sarala case file

 

Rabbi Epstein: I was speaking with a woman at a Shabbaton who had hit rock bottom. She was in her mid-thirties, and she was so distraught about shidduchim that she was talking about going off the derech.

“I’ll leave for a bit, and then come back on,” she said. “Then I’ll be put into the category of baalei teshuvah and I’ll have a whole different pool of boys and shadchanim to work with.”

She was talking tongue-in-cheek, but there was definitely a sliver of truth in her words.

Her story has a happy ending; she got engaged to a wonderful boy shortly after the Shabbaton and they now have a beautiful family together. But I am certain she is speaking on behalf of hundreds of girls who feel the same way but are too afraid to voice it out loud.

These girls are so full of yi’ush; they have been burned by the system and they’re ready to give up. And we can’t let that happen.

 

About Ohel Sarala

 

We pair up couples struggling with infertility with older single women so they can daven for each other. Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman explained that these nisyonos are similar, as both involve people waiting to build a family. Consequently, they can understand each other’s pain. Ohel Sarala ballooned into a full-fledged chizuk organization with ongoing events, trips abroad, and Shabbatons. The most important role Ohel Sarala plays is to show the girls that they are not forgotten.

 

Ohel Sarala by the numbers

 

We have 7,000 women involved in our organization, and while girls fly in from all over the world for our events and Shabbatons, a large majority live in Lakewood. At a recent local event, we had 2,500 girls in attendance.

 

Unseen challenges

 

Rabbi Goldberger: The struggle of a single woman is very complicated. They are not rachmanus cases. These are successful, productive members of society who in many cases have been burned and let down by the shidduch system. They are generally marginalized and made to feel like outsiders, while being forced to put on a front and pretend that everything is normal. They’re also often blamed for being single when their marital status is through no fault of their own.

Another defining challenge is the sheer loneliness of this struggle. A couple going through infertility, a sickness, or another nisayon has a spouse to lean on. A single woman is in it alone. In fact, many of our girls have said they’d prefer to be married for seven years without children than to be single for seven years.

A third pain point is younger siblings skipping them to get married. There are many Lakewood families with three or four girls “on the market,” so this has unfortunately become quite common.

Rabbi Epstein: The average time girls spend in shidduchim is three and a half years. We need to be honest with our girls about this timeline. Giving our girls the unspoken expectation that they will be engaged within six months to a year out of seminary only makes the struggle harder if it extends beyond that.

 

People should know

 

Rabbi Goldberger: One of the biggest challenges these women face is not being treated like adults. They are not “girls.” They are fully grown, accomplished adult women. Unfortunately, they have no real place in our society and are often treated like children, even when they’re pushing 35 or older. From our end, we are careful to do high-level events befitting adults. These are not high school girls, and an Ohel Sarala event can’t look like a high school chagigah. Everything, from the décor to the food to the program, is always mature and sophisticated.

Rabbi Epstein: These girls feel unseen, like they’re not valued. When a girl is expected to give up her room for Yom Tov for a married younger sister and her parents assume she’ll be fine sleeping on a top bunk bed in a room shared with her nieces, she’s given a message that she is not prioritized. When she’s asked to be home at a specific time as if she’s still sixteen even though she’s an adult woman who runs three companies, she feels infantilized. Parents need to realize their unmarried daughters are adults and should be treated that way.

 

How the klal can help

 

Rabbi Goldberger: Always, always be sensitive. Don’t make people feel like a nebach. These women are on high alert. They want to feel normal and accepted and they don’t want to feel like you’re hiding things when you’re talking to them. You don’t have to go on for fifteen minutes about how wonderful your husband is and how your kids are so adorable, but you also don’t have to be super awkward and never mention your husband and family.

Rabbi Epstein: Redt shidduchim! Professional shadchanim are responsible for only a third of all shidduchim; the rest happen through family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. If you know somebody, if you think of an idea, go ahead and redt it. Even if it doesn’t end with an engagement, you’ll show the singles involved that you care and that you’re thinking of them. They don’t need your pity; they need you to redt them shidduchim.

 

A Tishah B’Av message

 

Rabbi Goldberger: The very first passuk of Megillas Eichah compares Klal Yisrael in galus to an almanah, a woman who has no husband. This is the epitome of loneliness, of pain, the biggest tza’ar. Let’s do what we can for these women and help bring Mashiach today.

Born of Pain, Built on Chessed

 

  The hardships of galus have given rise to an extraordinary legacy of compassion

Rav Dov Kahan

As we reflect on Tishah B’Av and the many tzaros facing Klal Yisrael throughout this long and bitter galus, perhaps we can strengthen ourselves with three important perspectives.

When Klal Yisrael was sent into galus, we became vulnerable to persecution at the hands of the nations of the world. Throughout history, antisemitism has repeatedly reared its ugly head in countless forms. Every generation has known its own hardships, its own decrees, its own pain.

Yet, in truth, galus is the source of every form of suffering we endure. Whether it’s struggles with parnassah, divisiveness, children at risk, illness, infertility, the shidduch crisis, or any of the countless personal challenges that burden our lives, they all stem from the same root. When we lost the Beis Hamikdash, we lost the open and tangible closeness to Hashem that our ancestors experienced. The relationship wasn’t severed, chas v’shalom, but it became hidden. And when that closeness is concealed, every aspect of life is affected.

Sadly, there’s no shortage of pain in Klal Yisrael today.

Our first perspective is that galus is, at its core, a process of purification. It’s the root of our suffering, but also the means through which Klal Yisrael is cleansed. Every tza’ar we endure accomplishes a tikkun for the collective failings that led to the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. Every tear shed, every disappointment borne with faith, every challenge faced with resilience, brings the Geulah one step closer.

No pain is meaningless. No struggle is wasted. Every moment of endurance is precious before Hashem.

A second perspective is even deeper. The tzaros of galus prevent us from becoming too comfortable in exile. They remind us that this world as we know it is not our home. We belong somewhere else. We belong in a world where the Shechinah is revealed, where the Beis Hamikdash stands, where Hashem’s Presence is openly felt.

We’ve never experienced that reality ourselves. We can’t truly comprehend what it means to live with the Shechinah among us. Yet somehow, the pain of galus awakens within every Jewish soul a longing for something greater. Suffering has a way of stripping away the illusion that this world can fully satisfy us. It reminds us that we were created for closeness with the Ribono Shel Olam.

Pain drives us to daven with sincerity. It teaches us to cry out to Hashem from the depths of our hearts. It inspires us to repair and strengthen our relationship with Him.

The tzaros of galus aren’t purposeless. They awaken our yearning for redemption.

Finally, perhaps we can view the challenges of galus from yet another perspective. The suffering of Klal Yisrael has created extraordinary opportunities for chessed.

Consider the countless organizations that have arisen over the last half century. Where would we be without Hatzalah, Tomchei Shabbos, Bikur Cholim, Misaskim, Bonei Olam, and so many others? We can’t imagine Jewish life without them. Yet every one of these organizations exists because someone recognized pain and refused to remain indifferent.

Time and again we think every need has already been addressed, and then another organization emerges, identifying another hidden struggle, another lonely family, another overlooked challenge, bringing hope and dignity to countless lives.

The ba’alei mussar point out that the countless acts of selfless chessed performed by Noach and his family aboard the teivah rectified the corruption of the generation of the Flood. The world before the mabul was built on selfishness. The teivah ushered in a world built on selflessness. Every moment they devoted to caring for Hashem’s creatures helped prepare the world for a new beginning.

Perhaps we’re witnessing something similar.

Despite living in an increasingly self-centered society, we continue to see remarkable displays of kindness. People give of themselves, their time, their energy, and their resources, often anonymously and without recognition. They travel through the night to help strangers. They prepare meals, visit the sick, comfort mourners, raise unimaginable sums of money, and dedicate countless hours to easing another person’s burden. Mi k’amcha Yisrael!

These acts proclaim something profound.

Klal Yisrael is alive.

Its heart is beating.

Its soul remains compassionate.

And in that merit, we’re confident that Klal Yisrael will survive this final storm of ikvesa d’Meshicha.

Chazal teach that one who wishes to be protected from chevlei Mashiach should be “ya’asok baTorah u’vegemilus chassadim—immerse oneself in Torah and acts of kindness.”

Perhaps this is because the roots of our present galus lie in bitul Torah and sinas chinam. The only true tikkun is to build their opposites: deeper commitment to Torah and greater ahavas Yisrael.

The period preceding Mashiach is the concentrated expression of everything galus represents—its final struggle, its last desperate attempt to conceal Hashem’s Presence. Precisely during these difficult moments, Torah and gemilus chasadim become our greatest sources of protection and our greatest instruments of redemption.

Every act of Torah.

Every act of kindness.

Every gesture of compassion.

Every time we carry another Jew’s burden.

Every time we choose love over division.

Every time we respond to pain by bringing light.

We weaken the very forces that sustain galus.

There’s one final thought.

The lack and suffering we experience are decreed by Heaven. But every ounce of chessed, every heartfelt tefillah, every moment of unity and growth that emerges because of that suffering, is forever credited to the one whose pain inspired it.

Many years ago, a baby girl contracted a terminal illness. The community poured out its heart in tefillah on her behalf. For months, countless davened and accepted on themselves mitzvos in her merit. Tragically, she passed away before reaching her first birthday.

People struggled to understand the unspoken question. What was the purpose of such a short life?

One of the gedolim explained that in a previous gilgul her soul had achieved perfection in nearly every area except tefillah. The countless prayers that her illness inspired were credited to her, completing what was lacking and allowing her soul to move on to a better place.

We can’t pretend to understand Hashem’s ways. But we can believe that no suffering is empty. No tear goes unnoticed. No prayer is ignored. No act of kindness is ever lost.

As we sit on Tishah B’Av mourning the Churban, we cry not only for what was lost, but for what can still be rebuilt. Every act of Torah, every sincere tefillah, every expression of love between one Jew and another is another stone placed in the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash.

May we merit to transform the tears of galus into tears of joy.

May the pain that has united Klal Yisrael become the catalyst for complete redemption.

And may we soon witness the day when Tishah B’Av will be transformed into a Yom Tov, when all suffering will finally be understood, every tear will be wiped away, and we will once again experience the open embrace of the Ribono Shel Olam with the coming of Mashiach, b’meheirah b’yameinu, amen.