Rebuilding

His name was Meshichiel, which is actually the name of a malach, and it’s mentioned in a sefer of the Chida and other sifrei Kabbalah. I’d just never met anyone with that name before.

His five older brothers also had amazing, faith-driven names: Shimshon Hagibor, Tzemach Geulah, Kochaviel, Eliraz Tzefania, and Goel Meir David, and their little sister Shivi was actually Shiviti Hashem Lenegdi Tamid. But growing up where they did, no one paid too much attention to the family’s names, waist-long peyos, or enormous knitted kippot made of hand-dyed wool shorn from their own sheep.

Meshichiel’s family has a multi-generational story of sacrifice that began with his great-grandfather’s flight from Hungary to Eretz Yisrael back in the 1940s. Elter Zeide Kalman had joined the Stern Gang and the Lechi, where he played a role in bombing at least three British caravans.

“You have to understand,” Meshichiel’s oldest brother Shimshon Hagibor told me. “This is a family of warriors. That’s why I need you to intervene with my little brother.”