Hashem, this is the day You gave me

“Everyone who lost someone in the attack felt that its message was that we have to feel a sense of achdus and connection not distance. I also wanted to make an accounting of all the chesed done for us to say to Hashem — look what Your people did. To say to people — look what we did for each other”

F or close to a year her husband’s name — Chaim Yechiel ben Malka — was in the prayers of Jews around the world. Four of his neighbors and friends had been viciously murdered by two Arab terrorists who invaded their shul during the quiet holy moments of Shemoneh Esreh.

Chaim (Howie) Rotman was grievously injured in the attack. He lived for 49 weeks never regaining consciousness. Upon his passing his wife Risa joined the four other widows of what became known as the Har Nof Massacre; the ten Rotman children brought the number of orphans to 36.

From the morning of the attack through the Motzaei Shabbos levayah for Risa it was a year of waiting hoping weeping praying growing. Of sitting at her husband’s bedside day after day.