A New Week

and an open faced cheese toast with bitter honey for Hersh.

On Thursday my husband, Jay, and I drove from Tel Aviv with our dear friend Dina Kraft and picked up my father, Stan, from his apartment in Jerusalem. From there, we drove to the third day of shiva for Hersh Goldberg Polin in a huge blue tent up the block from their home. 

As we joined the line we were greeted by a volunteer who patiently (and, likely, for the hundredth time) explained to us that the wait would be nearly two hours, and that we could choose to sit inside instead (but forgo the opportunity to sit face-to-face with the Goldberg Polins). 

We also received the first of a dozen thank-you’s we would field in the few hours we were there, a reflection of the invisible mist of decency and gratitude that surrounded a family who would be forgiven for projecting the complete opposite. We chose to wait, and were offered cold coffee by an old friend of Jay’s who was volunteering, one of dozens of yellow-vested good souls who, I must confess, I envied for their ability to channel their sadness into busy-making tasks.