“Zechariah’s Mother”

Eulogy delivered by the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Mosheh Lichtenstein, for Mrs. Miriam Baumel a”h (mother of Zechariah Baumel Hy”d) who was niftar last Thursday

When I eulogized Yona Baumel z”l (nearly fourteen years ago) in the beit midrash, I compared him to two different figures, one from Tanakh, the other from Rabbinical sources. The first was Yaakov Avinu, who spent much of his life battling with the question of what had happened to his son, Yosef. The other is a fascinating Talmudic character – Avuha de-Shmuel, an important Amora and a learned scholar in his own right who is quoted in several places, with some important laws established on the basis of his teachings. Nevertheless, his identity – and even his real name – remain unknown. What we do know is that he was the father of Shmuel. His identity and personality are characterized by his nurturing and education of his son, through whom he attains eternal renown.

I was not privileged to share a significant, personal acquaintance with Yona z”l. For me, he was Avuha de-Zechariah. And just as Avuha de-Shmuel was an important figure, so was Avuha de-Zechariah.

The same might be said of his wife, Miriam Baumel a”h, who passed away last week. She, too, acquired the appellation that encapsulated her world for decades: Amia de-Zechariah. She, too, shared Yaakov’s experience of the disappearance of a son, with all that it entailed: the severance of contact with a beloved son; the perpetual sorrow and pain over the tragedy of a young man who had his whole life ahead of him, and the endless questions as to his fate; and the thick fog of uncertainty, contradictory reports, and leads that time after time led nowhere, creating emotional turmoil and a sense of helplessness.

However, in contrast to her husband, I was privileged to know Miriam in her own right, too.

Miriam z”l merited to live a life of faith and observance in the modern world of the 20^th century, and to be part of the historical processes that Am Yisrael has undergone in our generations. In her childhood she experienced on a personal level the transition from the old world to the new, and the experience of immigrants who had been uprooted from their familiar surroundings and found themselves somewhere that was new and foreign. The cultural insulation within the society of immigrants; the economic hardships; and – most of all – the tremendous mesirut nefesh to uphold Torah and mitzvot in a world in which Shabbat observance and making a living did not always (to put it lightly) go together, were her formative experiences. She and her family embodied the world of American Jewish Orthodoxy in the first half of the 20^th century. The dedication and self-sacrifice of these Jews is what kept that world alive and allowed American modern Orthodox Jewry later to flourish.

Born in the US to immigrant parents, Miriam was determined to integrate into American society as an observant Jewess who was also at home in the local culture: her fluent command of English was impressive; she managed to emerge beyond the immigrant circle into the broader social context, and she raised an Orthodox family in the heart of New York. In so doing she played her part in the creation of the confident American modern Orthodoxy that arose after the devastation of the Holocaust and established itself at the centers of activity in diverse spheres, combining social involvement and openness to secular knowledge and education, alongside meticulous religious observance.

Miriam and Yona merited to realize another chapter in 20^th century Jewish history when they became part of the great wave of Aliya that followed the Six-Day War. This Aliya brought Israel a great diversity of strengths and abilities, embodied in tens of thousands of immigrants (my family and myself among them). They picked up and moved, and their children, who had started their lives in the Diaspora, grew up and were educated in the finest educational institutions here in Israel.

Unfortunately, Miriam experienced not only the elation and holiness of the return to Jerusalem that illuminated those years, but also the pain and affliction through which Eretz Yisrael is acquired. She experienced the anguish of bereavement along with the terrible uncertainty of not knowing, for decades, what had happened to her son. She came to embody the most positive side of Israeli society and the sacrifices that it is forced to make for the sake of living in its land: a noble and heroic woman whose suffering and dignity every Israeli could identify with.

She was exceedingly sharp and intelligent. Since Zechariah’s disappearance, she lived two parallel lives: one was filled with grandchildren, the synagogue, and day-to-day routine; in the other, she was “Zechariah’s mother”. Every mother subjugates herself and her identity to her children – certainly in their early years; for Miriam this became her life’s mission. She and Yona were focused and driven to do whatever they could for their son. They were Yaakov Avinu, in a modern and most impressive incarnation. Unlike Yaakov, they did not merit to weep on Zechariah’s neck. Yona had nowhere to weep at all; Miriam wept not on her son’s neck, but on his grave.

Every conversation with them was conducted on two levels. One was about regular life, and included insights and clear-headed analyses – and Miriam knew how to dismiss fantasies and bring things down to earth when necessary. But sooner or later the conversation would take a turn and head in the direction of her life’s mission: the plans, the chasing around the world, the efforts to bring back Zechariah Hy”d.

Here I must add a word about the end of the story. Miriam merited to bring back her son’s remains for burial here in Israel, thereby to a great extent bringing closure. This was a great zekhut, and a great Divine kindness, but one has to understand the price she paid.

Throughout the country, the long-awaited return of Zechariah’s remains for burial was cause for great celebration. For Miriam, it was an exceedingly difficult moment. Together with the resolution of uncertainty and the achievement of her life’s mission, it represented the end of the last flicker of hope: a hope that had accompanied her throughout; the hope that only a mother could or should harbor in her heart – that her son Zechariah might still be alive. This last hope was extinguished with the news not that he had been found, but that he was to be brought for burial. I cannot forget what she told me the last time we spoke: “I have to face reality, because there is DNA evidence.” This sentence testifies to her heroic spirit and reflects the rationality that guided her, as well as the tremendous psychological difficulty of accepting the hard truth. The merit of being able to bury him on Mount Herzl, rather than having him lie among non-Jews on the outskirts of Damascus, was a great one, but it came with final, acknowledgment of his death.

May her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life and may her merit protect her family - her children, grandchildren and all her descendants; her friends and all those who were active in the effort to bring Zechariah back; the yeshiva, and all of Am Yisrael.