Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin: ‘ Grief is a Badge of Love’

Summary

Podcast Summary: All There Is with Anderson Cooper:
"Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin: ‘Grief is a Badge of Love’"
Date: April 22, 2026

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Main Theme

This episode of All There Is features Anderson Cooper in conversation with Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American who was kidnapped, injured, and ultimately killed by Hamas after being held hostage for nearly a year. The episode delves deeply into the nature of grief—its pain, its permanence, and its paradoxical place as a testament to love. Through intimate reflection, the Goldberg-Polins explore how they live with profound loss while challenging the notion that grief must be overcome or compartmentalized. The conversation resonates with a universal message: grief is not only an inevitable part of the human experience, but also a badge of enduring love.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Living in "The After"

• Rachel and Jon describe their lives now as divided between "the before" and "the after" (02:16).
  • Rachel: "From the second that Hirsch was stolen, we plummeted down this rabbit hole odyssey of curvy torment... That's where we live now.”
  • Jon: "There's not one moment in my life now that Hirsch is not on my mind. It's constant, and I suspect it will always be that." (02:50)

2. The Daily Presence of Grief

• Grief as a constant companion, but also as an outgrowth of deep love.
  • Rachel: "I am hungry for him, like I am thirsty for him. And this craving that I think intensifies. There are people who say, well, if you're still grieving after X amount of time, then you have a disorder. Yes, I do, and I'm really proud of it. … I'm proud that I'm feeling out of order because of the love. That's why it's so painful." (03:16-04:47)
  • Anderson: "It's a sign to you of the amount of love you have for him." (04:47)
  • Rachel: "The grief is a badge of love because it is the love that is continuing to grow in the absence of the person that we adore. And that's a price I'm willing to pay." (04:50)

3. Integration of Grief and the Concept of "Tragic Optimism"

• Encountering and embracing "toxic positivity" and discovering another framework.
  • Rachel: "I Googled what is the opposite of toxic positivity? And it said, tragic optimism. And I was like, oh my gosh, I love that. That is me. I am a tragic optimist." (06:53-07:14)
  • She finds comfort and reality in being able to hold both joy and pain.

4. Universality of Grief

• Grief as a shared human experience across conflict, borders, and time.
  • Rachel: "All over the world right now, and it's not a team sport. You don't have to choose a side. ... we have so much more in common in this human endeavor of life. It unites us." (07:58-08:23)

5. The Final Messages: "I Love You" and "I'm Sorry"

• Hersh's last texts from the bomb shelter and their devastating clarity.
  • Rachel: "The first one said, I love you. And the second one said, I'm sorry, and I just knew." (09:01)
  • Discussion of Hersh’s actions in the bomb shelter, the violence he endured, and his selflessness (10:05-10:38).

6. Chronic Nature of Grief

• Pain and yearning as ongoing, not linear, processes.
  • Rachel (to Anderson): "Pain that is agonizing, throat, choking, debilitating, soul shattering... But the pain is chronic, ever present, constant, gnawing, circular, not linear bound in our straight jacket of suffering." (10:38)

7. The Impact of Trauma at Different Ages (with Interjection by Irene Weiss)

• Holocaust survivor Irene Weiss describes her own lifelong grief.
  • Irene Weiss: "The heart keeps working, but the soul never forgets. It's imprinted on the soul... Very difficult. I can see how I'm strange among other women or friends." (12:06-13:24)
  • Jon relates: "I find myself frequently saying, act like you're in the conversation. ... there's no stopping and relaxing and detaching. It's always something running." (13:24)

8. Communal Grief and the Israeli Funeral Experience

• Powerful expressions of collective sorrow and personal apology during Hersh’s funeral.
  • Rachel: "There were thousands of people there... It was just miserable because it should be miserable. And that I really like. It's very real." (26:22-27:10)
  • Jon: "People holding a sign with one word on it, slicha, which means, I'm sorry. There was this communal national sense of, we failed you, and we're sorry." (27:57)

9. The Search for Meaning—Viktor Frankl’s Philosophy

• Hersh’s mantra in captivity was Frankl’s: "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how."
  • "He kept saying this mantra... which was a quote from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for meaning. When you have a why, you can bear almost any how. … And we were just floored that that's what Hirsch was doing." (31:57)
  • Rachel now carries the book with her and discusses searching for her own "why." (33:47)

10. The Metaphor of Tunnels

• Hersh’s teenage notebook contains uncanny wisdom about tunnels, written years before his death.
  • "Every so often you arrive at a tunnel and you enter the unknown. ... If it is with despair, it will take a longer time. Or if you enter with all of your might, it will pass quicker." (Interviewer's reading, 35:52)
  • Rachel: "He writes about tunnels 12 times in this passage, eight years before he was held in a tunnel." (36:40-36:45)

11. Embracing and Honoring Grief

• Grief as a relationship with love that persists and grows.
  • Rachel: "The way that I love Hirsch today is different than how I loved him yesterday ... love is stronger than time and love is stronger than death." (23:31)
  • Anderson: "Does it help you to know that you are on a road that has been walked down by everybody who's ever lived?"
  • Rachel: "For me, for sure, it helps me. ... It's challenging. Okay, I'll do it." (38:26)

12. Hope and Survival

• Rachel’s daily mantra during Hersh’s captivity:
  • "Hope is mandatory. Not a suggestion and not advice. It's a command." (39:31-39:40)

13. The Unresolved “Storage Locker” of Trauma

• Rachel compartmentalizes the trauma of the 330 days during which Hersh was captive and struggles with whether or how to unpack it.
  • "That's the 330 days. ... I don't know now what to do with that. ... Do I have to go through that? Do I have to unlock it? I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to do it." (40:01-41:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (w/ Timestamps)

• "The grief is a badge of love because it is the love that is continuing to grow in the absence of the person that we adore. And that's a price I'm willing to pay."
  – Rachel Goldberg-Polin (04:50)

• "I am out of order, and my life, in many ways, was out of order because I buried my son. … I actually embrace it."
  – Rachel (03:16-04:47)

• "I am a tragic optimist."
  – Rachel (07:10)

• "There's nothing special about you or your loss."
  – Anderson, paraphrasing Rachel (07:43)

• "The heart keeps working, but the soul never forgets."
  – Irene Weiss (12:06)

• "Pain that is agonizing, throat-choking, debilitating, soul shattering... But the pain is chronic, ever-present, constant, gnawing, circular, not linear."
  – Anderson (10:38)

• "Hope is mandatory. Not a suggestion and not advice. It's a command."
  – Rachel (39:35)

• "He kept saying this mantra... when you have a why, you can bear almost any how."
  – Rachel (31:57)

• "Don't fight the grief. Don't try to diminish the grief. Just figure out how to carry it in a way that I can walk through the world still while the grief is always on me."
  – Jon Goldberg-Polin (38:37)

• "Every person is a whole universe…we were looking at Hirsch as one world and the whole boy."
  – Rachel (37:29)

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Meaningful Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:16 | Rachel & Jon describe “the after” | | 03:16-04:47 | Rachel redefines disorder and grief as badges of love | | 06:53-07:14 | Discovery of “tragic optimism” | | 09:01 | Hersh’s final texts from the shelter | | 12:06 | Irene Weiss on lifelong imprint of grief | | 13:24 | Jon on inhabiting conversations while grieving | | 23:31 | Rachel on the evolving love she feels for Hersh | | 26:59 | Israeli funeral customs and collective grief | | 31:57 | Hersh’s use of Frankl’s mantra “a why to live for…” | | 39:31 | “Hope is mandatory. Go.” – Rachel’s daily survival mantra | | 41:09 | Rachel on unresolved stored trauma and fear of unpacking it |

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Key Takeaways & Final Reflections

• Grief is an enduring, evolving process—a testament, not an affliction.
• Enduring grief affirms love that is not limited by time or even death.
• The challenge is not to rid oneself of grief, but to find ways to coexist with it, to let joy and pain intermingle.
• Universal human experiences—loss, longing, and the search for meaning—can connect us across borders, generations, and tragedies.
• Hope, however fragile or forced, is sometimes all that stands between survival and collapse.

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For listeners, this conversation is a piercing, moving meditation on grief’s cruel paradoxes and its profound, lasting grip—yet also on resilience, connection, and the extraordinary power of love.

Transcript

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

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[Interviewer]

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[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

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[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

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[Interviewer]

Welcome to all there is Years ago I read a book called Man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl and it's become a really important book for me. It's about his experience in Nazi concentration camps. It's really a book about survival, frankl wrote. Most men in a concentration camp believe that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet in reality there was an opportunity and a challenge. One can make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph. Or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate. Frankl said that any attempt to restore a man's inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. He quoted Friedrich Nietzsche's words, he who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how. Whenever there was an opportunity for it, Frankl wrote, one had to give them a why, an aim for their lives in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence. We had to learn, he says ourselves, and furthermore, we had to teach the despairing man that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. That book, written in 1946, has helped me and millions of people. It also helped a 23 year old man named Hersch Goldberg Poland when he was maimed and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th. Hersh was executed 328 days later. But his mom Rachel, now carries that book, man's search for meaning wherever she goes. She's written a book now about her grief and pain which is out. It's called when we see you again. I sat down with Rachel and her husband, Hersh's dad John, several days ago. You divide your life between what you call the before and the after. You're in the after now.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes, from the second that Hirsch was stolen, we plummeted down this rabbit hole odyssey of curvy torment. First for 330 days and then once Hirsch was murdered and we found out about that, we entered even another layer of otherness within this different world that we've been in. And that's where we Live now.

[John Goldberg Poland]

There's not one moment in my life now that Hirsch is not on my mind. It's constant, and I suspect it will always be that.

[Interviewer]

What is that feeling?

[John Goldberg Poland]

It's the whole gamut. It's deep longing to smiling as I remember something as simple as sitting on the couch and talking to him. But it's always there.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I really start my day. The first words out of my mouth are to him while I'm still in bed before I start my morning prayers. And there's a lot of dialogue throughout the day, and he's very present, and his presence is really a comfort, and it's a reminder of this delicious blessing of having had him. I don't associate him with the sadness, but then there's this longing like I am hungry for him, like I am thirsty for him. And this craving that I think intensifies. It doesn't lessen. There are people who say, well, if you're still grieving after X amount of time, then you have a disorder. Yes, I do, and I'm really proud of it. And I thought the etymology of disorder, dis, from the Latin, means opposite. Dis, ease or disagree or what have you. And so disorder. I am out of order, and my life, in many ways, was out of order because I buried my son. That's out of order. It's not unique. There are millions of people who have buried their children. I'm not saying I'm different. I'm just saying I have a disorder and I actually embrace it. I'm proud that I'm feeling out of order because of the love. That's why it's so painful.

[Interviewer]

It's a sign to you of the amount of love you have for him.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes. The reason that I'm in this constant state of yearning is because of the love. The grief is a badge of love because it is the love that is continuing to grow in the absence of the person that we adore. And that's a price I'm willing to pay.

[John Goldberg Poland]

I spend zero time trying to work on not grieving. What I work on is embracing the grieving, but also at the same time, being able to smile, find joy, celebrate, et cetera, not in place of. In addition to. And as Hirsch, who helps me. I have him in my head and on my shoulder and in my ear. And I think he's saying, live, find joy, celebrate, dance, be happy. And I'm trying to listen to him. I don't know what the afterlife is and what it looks like, but I convince myself that he's okay. He's okay. We need to work on us, but he's okay, and that helps me.

[Interviewer]

Do you feel him?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I do feel Hirsch very much. I had this incredible experience a few weeks ago. We met with this young woman named Oria who was talking about how we integrate loss. And she was talking about this idea that I had never heard, toxic positivity. Which is when people are constantly saying to you, you're going to be okay. It's okay. You're getting better. And to the point where I think it's actually emotionally barbaric and gaslighting to say that to people. There are people who are broken. Own your brokenness. I'm broken, and I'm gonna go through life broken. It doesn't mean I'm not gonna be happy or laugh or have amazing relationships and celebrate my two vivacious, dynamic, talented daughters.

[Interviewer]

You can be both at the same time.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes. So I Google what is the opposite of toxic positivity? And it said, tragic optimism. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I love that. That is me. I am a tragic optimist. So then I said, who coined that phrase? Viktor Frankl?

[Irene Weiss]

No.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

And I was like, thank you, Hirsch. I mean, come on. I thought Hirsch just sprinkled that right onto me. There's something beautiful about the ability to still be optimistic. But you've been wounded. There is a real texture. Once you've had the perspective of intense suffering, which we've had, and everyone will have.

[Interviewer]

One of the things you have said to me repeatedly is that there's nothing special about you or your loss. There are so many people who, as a result of October 7, on both sides of the border, have suffered tremendous losses of children.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Exactly. And all over the world right now, and it's not a team sport. You don't have to choose a side. Even though I think sometimes that construct serves a tiny percent of people, we have so much more in common in this human endeavor of life. It unites us.

[Interviewer]

It connects everybody on the planet, which

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

is so no one wants to see that. But that adversarial construct is what keeps us cheering for two different teams, when really this is humanity. And how do we as humans acknowledge and recognize the pain and suffering and loss and grief and mourning that all of us have or will have.

[Interviewer]

You talk in the book about the moment the before was done and the moment the after started. And for you, that was the morning of October 7th, when you read the two text messages from Hirsch that you got. What did those messages say?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

The first one said, I love you. And the second one said, I'm sorry, and I just knew. There's no 23 year old in the world who at 8, 11 in the morning is writing those to his parents out of nowhere because everything's okay. It's because everything's not okay. And we now know that was already after his forearm was blown off.

[Interviewer]

He typed those in a bomb shelter

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

with his non dominant unit.

[Interviewer]

Even calling it a bomb shelter, by the way, is kind of grandiose. It's a five by eight concrete bunker, essentially, with an open doorway.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

In that room were more than 25 young people crammed together.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

Hamas had already come, had already thrown in multiple grenades. Hersh's best friend, Aner Shapira, had already thrown out, at least According to eyewitnesses, 10 of those grenades he was killed. Others threw grenades as well. And Hirsch, was his hand blown off throwing a grenade?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes, because Aner had said to everyone, your natural response will be to close your eyes if something's thrown at you, you have to keep your eyes open and try to throw out anything they're throwing in. And if anything happens to me, you keep doing it. And he ended up getting killed. And so the other kids who were inside were trying to do what Anir had told them to do. And Hirsch was holding a grenade that exploded while he was trying to throw it out, and that's how his forearm below the elbow was blown off.

[Interviewer]

You said in the book, in the New World, our story is a story about pain. Pain that is agonizing, throat, choking, debilitating, soul shattering. No one wants to hear that. People want hope, resilience, recovery, strength, survival, healing. They want thriving and rising from the ashes like the Phoenix from the days of yore. But the pain is chronic, ever present, constant, gnawing, circular, not linear bound in our straight jacket of suffering. John and I are still stranded in this tunnel, even though Hirsch is no longer there.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I think about that a lot. I had a really meaningful conversation with this ultra Orthodox rabbi after Hirsch was killed. And he said, Hirsch was thrown into this very deep, dark place, and because you are his parents, you were there with him and you will always be there. It felt like a validating affirmation. And I had another friend who said, part of you is already in the world to come, and that's why you feel so confused here, because there's a percentage of you that you put in the ground.

[Interviewer]

You felt that at Hirsch's funeral, looking into the hole that he was going to be put into. You felt you were in there.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Irene Weiss, who is a Holocaust survivor, virtually her whole family was killed.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I heard her on your podcast.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I just want to play something that she said on the podcast.

[Irene Weiss]

The heart keeps working, but the soul never forgets. It's imprinted on the soul. That keeps the memory, the pain, the grief, it's just always there.

[Interviewer]

The 13 year old girl that you were, do you still feel that little girl at times or did you bury her early on in your life?

[Irene Weiss]

Oh, that's a good question. That's really a very good question. I am stuck there. I'm really stuck there. That's where all the grief is. It's not the depression that you could read about in books. It's a pain and it's a melancholy. I'm different, I'm holding on. And yes, I'm 13 years old, most of the time, very difficult. I can see how I'm strange among other women or friends. I think I probably am misunderstood too, that I'm reserved or not friendly or something like that. Very hard to. I see another side all the time. Not fair. Not fair.

[John Goldberg Poland]

She talked about at the end where she's with her friends and she's not all there. I, on the one hand feel like I'm now much more comfortable being open and emotional with my buddies. At the same time, I find myself frequently saying, act like you're in the conversation. Throw out a comment here and there, pretend like you're there even if you're not. It's just constant brain working. There's no stopping and relaxing and detaching. It's always something running. But the bigger thing, as I listen to Irene talk is, and we've said this for a long time, we weren't in the bomb shelter, we weren't taken hostage, we weren't in tunnels. And I feel in some ways like it's an insult to her, in some ways. To compare our experiences, I actually talked

[Interviewer]

to her daughter a couple days ago and I mentioned that she was going to be talking to you and she actually made a little video for you.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

So I just want to quote that

[Irene Weiss]

I watched you both advocating for your son and was deeply disturbed by his death. When I was 13, I lost most of my family in Auschwitz. But losing a son, a child is a special kind of pain. At age 95, my own grief goes in stages. Sometimes it is hard to bear, other times the feelings are more quiet. And then again, I am full of rage at the world that creates such murderers. I wish you strength in dealing with your grief.

[Interviewer]

Do you feel that rage at All.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I don't feel the rage, but I love what she said because. I love that she's held onto the pain for 80 years. It's so permissive. It's really beautiful because I don't plan on getting rid of this pain. I really don't.

[Interviewer]

You don't want to?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I don't think that it's attainable. I think that it's so integral to who we are, and I think that it's. It's just part of us now, and I'm comfortable with it. And pain also promotes healing. We don't have to be terrified of pain. And I love that. She very much acknowledged in the previous video, there's something about when you're crisis happens to you, when your trauma happens, you do get stuck in that place. John and I were both 53 years old. We had had a really good run. But I do think of people like Irene or you, or other friends who as children had their big loss. And you get stuck in that place. And I don't think there should be shame involved with that. But I think for many years, a lot of people felt that because of the toxic positivity of being told, okay, it's been three years, two years, five years, 10 years, come on, you know, integrate it and let's go. And I think that's done a lot of damage to a lot of people. And so I love that her message is, I'm 90 years old. This happened when I was 13. And it has been on my back and I'm carrying it.

[Interviewer]

I like that. She says some days it's more quiet, but it's still there.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

It's always there for sure.

[Interviewer]

You said then there are days when suddenly there's a whisper of sun. Not out there in the sky, in me, in us. It's coming from within. The four of us, we who used to be five, we are figuring out how to float with one of us not present. He also said, I hope I can teach myself how to miss someone forever and love someone forever in a way that doesn't run me over each day anew. Have you gotten any closer to that?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I'm not sure. I don't know if it's closer to that, but it's different. And it's just getting more familiar with this sensation that's always right here. I always feel like he's right here. That longing is right here. But you can get comfortable with wanting. I don't like it, but I can get familiar with it. There's a scene in Gone with the Wind. The burning of Atlanta. And it's Rhett Butler is trying to lead the horse that's carrying the wagon with Scarlett and everybody. And the horse is getting spooked by all of the flames and destruction around it. Rhett Butler puts a fabric over the horse's head and then the horse. And he's talking gently to the horse and the horse is okay, but every few minutes the horse freaks out and I kind of feel like the horse. I'll be freaking out and then I'll talk myself down and I'll soothe myself, but then I'll realize, holy cow. Like this. I cannot believe this is our reality. And I'll get spooked.

[Interviewer]

You must have had that repeatedly in the 330 days.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Oh, my gosh.

[Interviewer]

That was before you learned he had been executed.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes.

[John Goldberg Poland]

It's not grief.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Those 330, that was torture. That was an exquisite, perfected torture. Knowing that your child is being tortured and you know it and being starved and you know it and has no arm and you know it is absolute excruciating torture. And how do you just keep breathing? And that's when I had a lot of really confusing self care problems. It was extremely hard for me to shower because I knew he wasn't showering. It was extremely hard for me to eat because I knew he wasn't eating. It was extremely hard for me to drink water because we knew they weren't drinking. They would maybe get half a cup of salt water from the sea or dirty water. It was excruciating. And a lot of my problem. Now I know that Hirsch is not starving anymore. I know he's not dirty anymore. And yet when every single time I shower, I'm uncomfortable showering. And when I drink water now it's uncomfortable, which is really damaged. And yet I earned that damage. It's real.

[Interviewer]

I should point out that I first met you when I interviewed you on CNN on October 16. Some eyewitnesses had told you that Hirsch had been wounded and you knew that part of his left arm had been blown off. You didn't have any video of him at that point. And while I was interviewing you, I saw a picture of Hirsch that we put up that you had given us, which was Hirsch in the bomb shelter. I realized that I had actually seen a video of Hirsch being kidnapped. I'd been shown it several days before by some Israeli soldiers at the Nova Music Festival site on one of their phones. I actually exclaimed when I saw it, Jesus, his hand has been blown off. But I had no idea when I was talking to you that that's who that was until I saw the photo. And I was trying to figure out, how do I handle this? What do I do? And I realized I'm not going to say anything now. And as soon as the interview was done, I said I was going to call you, and then I informed you of that and sent you the video. I said this to you in the 60 Minutes interview. I feel terrible that that is the way you saw what happened to your son.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I actually think that was actually a perfect way. And I'm not saying this because we're here. And we really were so struck by your humanity that evening because you handled it in such a perfect way. You were as gentle and human and kind and benevolent as possible given this terrible thing that you had to give over to us. So we're actually thankful that it was you and that you did it in the way you did it.

[Interviewer]

I want to read something you wrote about grief. You said, what if instead of hating, tolerating, or just putting up with grief, what if I'm all wrong? Maybe I actually owe grief an apology. For so long, I've been confused, desperate, and in such profound pain, I haven't been thinking straight. I've been looking at grief through mud colored glasses. I've decried grief as a trespasser. I've tried to bar the door, I've screened its calls. I've written libelous, disparaging remarks about grief. But perhaps grief is merely the messenger. And by trying to prevent it from entering the room of my soul, I've exhausted myself. Now I see how that very effort depleted my mangled body and spirit even further. I think that much of the festering, blistering pain that we broken feel comes from trying to deny the love that continues to grow after a person dies. With a bolt of revelation, I see that grief is a badge of the love that continues to grow after its recipient is no longer here. Why in the world wouldn't we want to wear that precious badge proudly? Do you feel like you have a relationship with Hirsch still and that it grows?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

That I definitely feel the way that I love Hirsch today is different than how I loved him yesterday or last week or last month or last year, or on October 6th. It really is like bamboo and continues to grow and develop and change shapes and textures. And what I have learned that's most revelatory for me is that love is stronger than time and love is stronger than death. And I don't think that about hate. I actually think hatred is this Very powerful emotion. But I think with time, it can peter out. And I think love keeps growing. That's what's so glorious. Because that gives me comfort, knowing that this love is gonna keep changing and shifting and curving around, and it's not gonna disappear. No. No chance in the world. Even what Irene was saying, that gives me hope. 80 years from now, you're still gonna

[Interviewer]

love this kid, but you're still gonna feel pain.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yeah, but that's all right. It's okay. I'll take it. It's the price.

[Interviewer]

Cause you get the love, too.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yeah. It's a package deal.

[Interviewer]

We'll be right back with more of my conversation with Rachel and John. You both went through this experience for 330 days knowing, believing Hirsch was alive. And when they came to tell you they'd found Hirsch and he'd been executed, you discovered something. What was it you discovered?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

That that had been the good part. There was the hope that he was. That we were getting him home. And now we knew he'd never come home. And he didn't. A lot of people say, like, oh, you finally got him home, or we finally got all the hostages home. Hersh never came home. Hirsch never came back to my home. I got him back in a bag, and we put him in the ground six miles from our house. That's not coming to my home. And so it was a whole new universe of, now, where are we? How do we do this? But we're doing it.

[Interviewer]

Funerals in Israel are so different than here. There's no casket. There's a body in a shroud. It's put in the ground. It's very elemental. It's very real.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yeah. We traditionally cut your shirt right above where your heart is when it's one of the seven closest relatives. Mother, father, brother, sister, daughter, son, spouse. And you tear your shirt upon hearing the news, and then you wear that shirt throughout the Shiva, throughout the seven day mourning period. So we happened to have been wearing whatever T shirts we were wearing Sunday morning when they came to tell us. And no one's wearing a suit, no one's dressing up, no one's showered. It was one of the hottest days of the year in August in Jerusalem.

[Interviewer]

There were thousands of people there.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

There were thousands of people there. It was just miserable because it should be miserable. And that I really like. It's very real.

[Interviewer]

I just want to play part of that.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Finally, my sweet boy. Finally, finally, finally, finally you're free. I will love you and I will miss you every single day for the rest of my Life. But you're right here. I know you're right here. I just have to teach myself how to feel you in a different way. I remember at some point during the eulogy that I gave, hearing this rolling cascade of screaming. People were screaming. His friends were on the ground, screaming, screaming. It was very helpful.

[John Goldberg Poland]

One of the many lasting images in my head of that day is we walked out of our apartment and we got in the car for a slow procession. And the entire route, the most common thing that we saw was people holding a sign with one word on it, slicha, which means, I'm sorry. There was this communal national sense of, we failed you, and we're sorry.

[Interviewer]

During. When you were speaking at the funeral, you looked up and you said, I'm sorry. You screamed out, I'm sorry.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yeah. As we were burying him.

[Interviewer]

And those were Hersh's last words in text to you as well. I'm sorry in that bomb shelter.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yeah. I think he was sorry because he thought he was dying, and he knew it would be horrific for us. And I also was feeling terribly sorry that I had failed to save him.

[Interviewer]

On the 328th day, you went with other families to the border, and the idea was to have families on loudspeakers talking to their loved ones and being held hostage. And you screamed out for Hirsch.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

H, it's Mama

[Irene Weiss]

Hirsch.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

It's day three, 28. We are all here, all the families of the remaining 107 hostages. Hirsch, we are working day and night and we will never stop.

[Interviewer]

Did you believe he maybe could hear you?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

We had been told that they were close enough that there was a chance that they could hear us. And it ended up being the most primal scream I've ever given over in my life. And I remember there was a cameraman in front of me who he jerked and burst into tears. And I. I have no idea if Hersh heard me in that moment, but I think he heard me in other ways at other times for sure.

[Interviewer]

And that day, that was the day he was executed.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

They think that they were executed later that afternoon. So I also am very thankful that I did go. I think that that was a very important thing for the universe to chronicle. Parents screaming to their child before he was taken from the universe.

[Interviewer]

You had very little information about what Hirsch's life had been like for those 328 days. And it wasn't until Or Levi gets released that you actually get to learn about the days that Or Levi spent with your son.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Right. And that was unbelievable and will always be something for the rest of my life, that I treasure those couple of hours that we spent in the hospital with or whose name, in Hebrew, the name or means light. And we had been living in complete darkness, first originally when Hirsch was stolen, and then certainly after Hirsch was killed. We were in the darkest, most black, drenched place. And suddenly, on the evening of 496, we meet light, we meet Orr.

[Interviewer]

Orr told you that Hirsch was not

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

broken and that he was laughing, that there was laughter. He said, well, he kept saying this mantra that he was saying to himself constantly, which was a quote from Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for meaning. When you have a why, you can bear almost any how. When you have a why, you can bear almost any how. And we were just floored that that's what Hirsch was doing. And he said, oh, he said to me, your why is your son. You have to get out of here. You're going to bear this. You're going to deal with this because you have a son at home. And Eli Shahrabi wrote about it in his book that Hirsch said the same thing to him, and he said it to Eli Akoh. He was saying this to everyone and to himself. And that became so illuminating for John and me. And I had never read the book.

[Interviewer]

It's a 1946 memoir by Viktor Frankl about his time in concentration camp.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

It's in my bag. I travel with it because it's Hirsch. It's a piece of Hirsch. And I didn't know. And so all of the sudden, we find out he's making people feel okay. He was still himself. Yes, he was missing an arm. Yes, he was hungry. Yes, he was scared. They were all miserable. But he wasn't broken, and he could have been broken. It's not that I don't. I mean, I'm broken. I mean, heck, like, that's my identity. It's not that I'm anti that. What or was telling us is that, yes, it was horrible, and he was okay.

[Interviewer]

Do you know what your why is?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Part of our why is figuring out our why, and part of our why is picking up Hirsch's why. And I'm really fascinated by this idea. The BAAL Shem Tov, who was sort of the father of mystical Judaism 300 years ago, was once asked, what's the purpose of this life? Like, why are we all here? Why do we all get here? What's the point? And he said, every soul is. Is sent to this world so that one day their soul can do one kindness for one person just once. It doesn't mean you're not supposed to do thousands of acts of kindness and betterment and improvement and trying to fix this place. But you're here and I'm here, and John's here, and all of us are here because there's one specific thing that we're supposed to do once that. Did Hirsch do his one kindness when he was three and we were living in Berkeley? Did he do it when he was 13 and he was in 8th grade and he was nice to somebody who no one was nice to? Or was it saying something empowering to someone in a dark tunnel under Rafa when he was 23? I don't know, but I know that he did it and that's why he was able to go. And I do wonder to myself, have I already done my one kindness? But I'm still here because someone else has to do their kindness to me. And I think figuring out our why is clearly having something to do with this colossal Herculean challenge we've been handed. In the losing of Hirsch.

[Interviewer]

You found a notebook that Hersh had kept back in 2015.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

He had just turned 15. He was a freshman in high school.

[Interviewer]

It's just a sort of musings of

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

a 9th grade boy with very bad handwriting.

[Interviewer]

I want to read part of what you found that he wrote. It's all about a tunnel. This was on October 26, 2015. Every so often you arrive at a tunnel and you enter the unknown. And you don't know when you'll get out to walk in the dark. In the beginning, you're upset and you're not ready, and you feel that you arrived at the edge. But it is not the exit or the end. It is just a change in the situation. How much time it will take to get to the end of the tunnel depends on the person. If it is with despair, it will take a longer time. Or if you enter with all of your might, it will pass quicker. My tunnel was when I was the new one, but. But like everything in life, I pass through the tunnel. Who knows how many more tunnels I will encounter? But I'm not afraid to slow down or even to make a U turn. What is sure is that I am walking to the end of the tunnel. He writes about tunnels 12 times in this.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

In this passage, eight years before he was held in a tunnel.

[Interviewer]

What do you make of it?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

It's a very strange passage, and I don't really know what to make of it. But I also want to take it as a message to us that we all have these metaphorical tunnels that we run into. We don't know if they're gonna be long or short or deep or shallow or when are we getting out? And hopefully we'll endure until it's our turn to get out.

[John Goldberg Poland]

Even after he was killed, it gave me strength that he was ready for the challenge, and he took on the challenge, and I think he really believed that. But we're all coming to get them. Just a question of when.

[Interviewer]

Is there something you've learned in your grief that would be helpful for others?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

There's a precept in the Jewish tradition and in other religions as well, that every person is a whole universe. I think that that's a really beautiful way of looking at people. And I think a lot of the people who we were talking to when Hirsch was alive, we realized that they were looking at Hirsch as one boy in the whole wide world. And we were looking at Hirsch as one world and the whole boy. And that. That's really beautiful. And that's why there's such suffering when we lose someone, because we're losing a whole world. And that's a gift that we miss our people so much. It is the most human thing we can ever experience. This loss.

[Interviewer]

Does it help you to know that you are on a road that has been walked down by everybody who's ever lived?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

For me, for sure, it helps me. Yeah. It's not unique. It's not unique. It's just. It's challenging. Okay, I'll do it.

[John Goldberg Poland]

Don't fight the grief. Don't try to diminish the grief. Just figure out how to carry it in a way that I can walk through the world still while the grief is always on me.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yeah. And that's why it's two containers of confusion that we deal with or try to deal with, because there's the death and all of the grief and loss and mourning and pain. And then there's this compartment. I think of it as, like, those storage lockers. That's the 330 days. It's like that. I really put in a storage locker. And I just feel.

[Interviewer]

Because you had to get through it. Yeah, you had to.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

So I was compartmentalizing it. I was saying, like, yes, you're terrified. Yes, you're traumatized. Yes, you're being tortured. That's later. Go. So I kept putting all that.

[Interviewer]

What was it you would say every morning when you woke up?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I would say, hope is mandatory. Go.

[Interviewer]

Hope is mandatory.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Hope is mandatory. Not a suggestion and not advice. It's a command.

[Interviewer]

Hope. Is mandatory. Go.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

You would go. And then I'd fling the blanket off and go. Even though I wanted to crawl up in a fetal position on the floor next to my bed and be weeping out of complete terror.

[Interviewer]

So to function, you had to push it all down.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

Which I'm very familiar with, and propel yourself forward.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Yes, Pushing, pushing, pushing. And then putting all that stuff into the storage locker. And I don't know now what to do with that. Meaning I'm so busy dealing with the grief and anguish and missing and yearning. And every day longer is. I miss him more, I don't miss him less. But I have a storage locker of horrific things. Do I have to go through that? Do I have to unlock it? I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to do it.

[Interviewer]

Do you feel its presence?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

I do, because weird things happen right when I'm showering. Well, that's from the storage locker. That's not from him being dead. Because a lot of people lose people, and they don't have a problem showering or eating or drinking or. John said recently, maybe one day you'll wear your hair down again. I put my hair up on October 7th, and I've never taken it down. I used to wear makeup. I've never worn makeup again. I used to wear jewelry. I've never worn jewelry again. Like, that's the 330 days.

[Interviewer]

So that you have not even begun to unpack or turn to.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Mm. Mm. And I don't know, is that possible? I mean, Irene would probably know. Like, am I 53 now, forever standing next to this storage locker? I don't know. I hope there's a way that I can be normal whether I open it or I don't.

[Interviewer]

Do you want to open it?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

No. And is that allowed? Can I just keep all of that horror locked up? Is that an option? Or will it? Is it, like, when you ignore that, oh, something's off in the fridge, and you just keep the door closed? Like, oh, and then one day you open the fridge and you're super overwhelmed. Like, is that gonna happen? But what if I promise I'll never open the fridge?

[Interviewer]

Not that my little fridge is comparable at all, but, I mean, that was my strategy my entire life.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

How'd it go?

[Interviewer]

40 years. I lasted 40 years, and then I found myself weeping uncontrollably while going through boxes of my dead family's things and not knowing, why am I weeping?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Right? But 40 years for me will take me to 96. You can maybe make it, I can make it right. And then if I lose it, so then put me in the ground next to Herschel as well.

[Interviewer]

But I lived half a life in those 40 years, right?

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Right.

[Interviewer]

Which I don't think you want to do.

[Rachel Goldberg Poland]

Right? So I guess I. I don't know.

[Interviewer]

I don't know. When you need to know, you'll know. Rachel Goldberg Poland's new book, When We See youe Again is out now later this week on Thursday. I hope you join me at 9:15pm for my streaming show, All There Is Live. You can only watch it on our grief community page, cnan.comAllTheRis it streams live there for free. You can also communicate with others in the comments or watching at the same time. If you missed the live stream, it'll be posted the following day for a week on CNN.com alltheris. It's a really special show and all the older episodes of it are available on demand for CNN subscribers. Also, if there's something you've learned in your grief that you think could be helpful for others, feel free to leave us a voicemail at 404-827-1805. We may use your message on an upcoming episode of the podcast. Thanks for listening. Wherever you are in the world and in your grief, you're not alone.