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- [00:01]
Narrator
In 2005, a 19 year old Golani soldier named Ami was stationed at one of the IDF's northernmost outposts in Lebanon. After a barrage of mortar fire, the position fell quiet and Ami realized he was completely alone. With orders not to abandon his post, he spent hours waiting. Ami made it through that night. But years later, even as he built a family and a life, the experience kept breaking into the future he was trying to build. Eventually, Ami found Buddyline, a program run by American Friends of Israel Navy Seals. Buddyline pairs Israeli Navy Seals with IDF combat veterans struggling with ptsd. Over a year, these pairs build trust, confidence and connection. It's warrior to warrior care, and for most of the 600 struggling veterans to date, it works. Today, Ami is a father of three and a leader in Buddyline, helping others steady themselves after service. If you're moved to support this work in honor of Israel's Memorial Day, click the link in our show notes. Your gift of any size can help someone move forward.
- [01:18]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
You are listening to an art media podcast. So this young woman asked, can you explain grief to us? It's about 100 kids in the room. And I said, everybody, picture someone who you really love, who's really core to your existence. You know, think of someone who you need to breathe. Are they in this room? And they all start, you know, shaking their heads no. And I said, do you not love them anymore? And suddenly they got it. And I said, that's grief. It's the price we pay for love. Because the alternative is that maybe I would have just had my two amazing daughters, but we had this extra delicious cookie with us for 23 years and 334 days on Earth. And the price is that I will be in pain for the rest of my life. And it's worth.
- [02:32]
Dan Sinor
Is 8:30pm on Monday, April 20 here at Temple Emanuel Stryker center in New York city. It is 3:30am on Tuesday, April 21st in Israel as Israelis. Mark Yom Hazikaron Israel's Memorial Day and I'm pleased to get into this conversation with Rachel Goldberg, Poland. Thank you, Rachel.
- [02:53]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Thank you, Dan.
- [02:54]
Dan Sinor
So Rachel, I want to start by just asking you what this book is when we see you again. I've been asked by many people who know I've read it to describe it. They say, is it a memoir? Is it a tell all from these last couple years? Is it a book of Jewish wisdom? How do you describe what it is?
- [03:12]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
I want to back up and just thank everybody for being in here. We feel the love. I think that this book is actually a love story swaddled in pain. Or maybe it's a pain story doused in love. And I also think it's the answer finally to, to the question that people know is exceptionally challenging for me, even though it's a very innocent, innocuous, human, normal, heartfelt question. When people say, how are you? This is the answer.
- [03:49]
Dan Sinor
So I was thinking as we were preparing for this conversation when we first met, which was weeks after October 7th.
- [03:57]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
It was day 17.
- [03:58]
Dan Sinor
Day 17. This is Rachel. As you'll see when you read the book, she can identify every moment. It's extraordinary by the day. So it was day 17 in New York City. And after that, in our conversations on the podcast, you were on as an advocate for your son who was being held hostage. Later we had conversations when you were the mother, a grieving mother who had lost her son, but still an advocate for the other hostages. And then now you're here as an author, something you probably never thought you would be right writing a book. But as much time as I've spent with you at every one of these phases, I never really had a window until reading this book into your life during what you call the book the before before October 7th. And it's beautifully captured. You really describe what your guy's life was like before October 7th. And there are so many images in the book. And maybe the one I was most moved by is how you describe Shabbat with your family before October 7th. Not necessarily the Shabbat right before October 7th, but what Shabbat was like. And I just want to read here you write in the before my favorite time of the week was always right after lighting Shabbat candles when John, the kids and I would walk to Shul to Synagog. The five of us would leave the house and walk to our shul. It is about a 20 minute walk. And it was always this time that I treasured more than any other of my week. We were together in this sacred interval without phones, just talking to each other, sharing, joking and teasing. No distractions, only moving toward shul on our feet. The walk gave us time to decompress from the marathon of the week. When the kids were growing up, I would often tell them, if you find yourselves happy or if something good is happening on a Wednesday morning, it is a ripple effect of the blessing that came from Shabbat because Shabbat holds the foundation of all the goodness in our lives. What was going on during Shabbat that it was the foundation of all the goodness in your life before October 7th.
- [06:03]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Well, the basis originally of me feeling that passionate feeling about Shabbat comes from the second verse in Le Chadodi, one of the many songs that we sing in Kabbalah Shabbat on Friday night, when we're welcoming the Sabbath bride into our lives, because it is the essence, it is the source of our blessing. And so it was from that idea that I kind of got this bug in my bonnet, and I thought, wow, that really means that any that happens to us, the kernel of it, the seed of it, is from Shabbat. And therefore, if you have something great happen on Tuesday afternoon, trace it back. The source is from Shabbat. So I thought that was awesome. And I used to tell my kids that all the time. And when they were little, they really thought it was cool. And we would try to figure out and extrapolate how this wonderful thing that happened on Monday night was because of something on Shabbat. And as they got older, they found it very irritating that I would constantly be saying to them, see, because it's Shabbat. And they were very aware that I had this real adoration for this sacred time of Shabbat. And all the more so as a family, all of us have different schedules, and this one has soccer on this night, and this one has to stay after school on this day and what have you. I mean, we all have this now, and yet we had this really beautiful time, specifically walking to shul on Friday night. And I can picture us because John and Hirsch had longer legs, and so sometimes they would start to get ahead of Orlie, and me and Lebe could go either way. So it depended on who was willing to be listening to whom. And there was a lot of joking going on, and it was just normal family things. I mean, I talk about that a lot in the book. Also, John and I crave now so desperately the boring. The boring night at home where everyone's sort of, what are we gonna do? This is boring. You know, that is so yummy. And that is what we loved.
- [08:22]
Dan Sinor
At some point in the couple years before October 7th, you write that Hirsch told you that he was not going to be religious the way you and John were religious, but yet you found that even though he was not going to be religious the way you two were religious on Shabbat, he still insisted on going to synagogue with both of you, with the entire family, but specifically with John. And you cite that decision as the ultimate in being religious or being holy. Can you talk about that?
- [08:49]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Hirsch had this gesture that always, when we would walk to shul, he would always take my bag. I always thought that was his love language, but I think that's me kind of projecting it might be that he liked carrying a handbag. I really don't know. But when he did come to us, what you're referring to, and I think people have heard me talk about this, that Hirsch said, I'm not gonna be observing Shabbat the way that we do. You know, everything that we've been doing our whole lives, which for me and for John was very painful, because anyone in the room who's a parent, if there's something that's really meaningful to you and your children, don't appreciate it. It's always really hard for us. I sometimes cite the fact that my mother was obsessed with taking me to the opera. I was not into it, and it probably bothered her. Now, that's a very different situation. But when Hirsch said he wasn't going to be keeping Shabbat the way that we kept Shabbat, he said, but I will always be respectful. And I said at the time to myself and to John, what is that going to look like? And of course, what it ended up looking like, I mean, there were many examples. But the ultimate example to me is that we're a family that goes to shul both Friday night and Shabbat morning. So he continued to come with us to shul Friday night, Friday night and Shabbat morning. Now, Friday night, you could argue it's Kabbalah, Shabbat, it's an hour, and then you're going for Shabbat dinner. Everybody can kind of handle that. But to wake up and our shul, you know, we need to leave at 8:30 in the morning to get to shul. And we would hear him stumbling in sometimes, you know, he would come to Shabbat dinner with us, and then he'd go out with his friends, and he would come home very late, early morning Saturday, you know, sometimes four or five in the morning. And yet he was still getting up at 8:30 to go to shul. And I asked him in the summer of 2023, because this had already been for a couple of years. I said, why are you still getting up early Saturday morning to go to shul? You explained to us, you were honest, you told us, this is not speaking to you. You don't want to do exactly how we're doing it, so why are you still doing it? And he said, I don't want Dada to sit alone, because in our separate seating, we have separate seating. So if he didn't go. Then John would be alone. And I remember I wrote in the book, you know, when we do things that are easy for us, I don't really think that we get credit for that. But it's. If you don't feel like doing something and something doesn't speak to you, and you do it because you love someone or because it's important to them, that is holy. And so to me, I think in many ways, Hirsch was more religious than a lot of people who use that as a brand, because he was doing this thing out of cave de vija veri meja, out of honoring his father and mother. And he didn't want John to be alone. And of course, I talk in the book, and John talks in the book. John wrote the afterword for the book about what it's like now because John always sits alone.
- [12:00]
Dan Sinor
I want to go now to the night of October 6th. And as you and I talked about earlier today, most of the people in this room know your story of October 6th to October 7th, but can you maybe just briefly describe that evening before you transition to October 7th?
- [12:16]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
So Hirsch was actually up north. He had gone up north on October 4th to go to a music festival up north. And he had said to us, I will see you on Sunday, which was October 8th. He was supposed to be up north that whole time, but he wrote to me on Friday afternoon and said, you won't believe this, but the police came and the organizers don't have the right permits, and so they're closing down the festival. And I'm on my way home. Can I still come with for dinner tonight? Which, of course, I called the friends of ours with whom we were going to be having Shabbat dinner after we were going to shul. And she said, of course. And we had a back and forth, and she said, I even made the tofu he likes. So she was happy he was coming. He was happy he was coming. He came home and he said, I'm coming with you to shul, and I'm coming with you to Shabbat dinner. But then an air and I are gonna go do something fun, because it had just been Hersh's birthday on October 3rd. So it was sort of, you know, he went up north for the music festival, and it got closed. So what a basa sad. And he was packing his bag, and I remember sticking my head in his room as he was packing his bag, and he was holding his book, and he was holding his book in his hand, and he said, I'm only Going for one night. I'm not gonna take it. And that book is still on his nightstand the whole time that he was being held captive. It would torment me when I would think, he's without any books. And I would see this book, which still rests on his nightstand with the bookmark in chapter. And by the way, it was the Dalai Lama's book, the Art of Happiness. And we went to shul that night together, the five of us, and we went to our friends for Shabbat dinner. And at 11 o', clock, he came up behind me on my right and he kissed me right here. And he kissed John and he hugged our hostess. And I remember thinking, what a good boy. And he turned around in the doorway and he just looked at me and said, I love you. I'll see you tomorrow.
- [14:39]
Dan Sinor
So now take us to 8:11am Saturday morning.
- [14:43]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
So John had left for shul because he was organizing the services for Simchat Torah, which was the holiday that coincided with that Shabbat. And I was having a cup of tea in our kitchen and I was going to join him with our girls a little bit later because the service, as many of you know, on Simchat Torah is a very long service. All of a sudden, around 8 o', clock, I hear sirens going off, which now, honestly, it's like that's a normal noise, tragically, but then it was quite unusual. And so I ran to wake up the girls and we got into our safe room, which happens to be Hersha's bedro. And because I didn't have a phone with me, because normally I don't use my phone on Shabbat. We didn't have computer or radio or tv. The girls crawled into Hersh's bed because I woke them to say, we have to get in Hersh's room. They crawled into his bed, and I was just standing by his desk listening, and I didn't hear anything suspicious. And the protocol is you wait 10 minutes and if you don't hear anything that sounds worrisome, then you can leave your safe space. So I said to the girls, after 10 minutes, we can leave. I'm getting my phone. Because I knew that Hirsch and Anir were sleeping outside somewhere, and I knew somewhere there were bombs falling. And I turned on my phone. It was actually 8:13. Well, I turned on my phone, I think it was 8:23. And what I saw was that two WhatsApps had both come in simultaneously at 8:13 to the group that John Hirsch and I have, just the three of us, and they were the two texts that said, I love you, I'm sorry. And I tried to call him immediately. And it rang and rang and I wrote, are you okay? Tell me you're okay. I'm leaving my phone on. Tell me you're okay. And those have never had two blue checks. And a few minutes later, John came running in from shul because they canceled shul because of all the sirens. And I handed him my phone and I said, we're in trouble.
- [16:50]
Dan Sinor
At some point later that morning, while you were figuring out what's going on, there's a moment you describe in the book, which I've never heard you describe before, where you started saying to yourself, or saying out loud repeatedly, God is here. God is here. So where were you at that point in the understanding what was going on and what did you mean by that?
- [17:10]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
We were in my bedroom, our bedroom. And I had handed my phone to Libby, my older daughter, because I don't now I know much more about social media, but I didn't know anything. I never had Facebook or Instagram or anything. And so I had said to her, find him. Where could he be? And she immediately found an advertisement for the Nova. And she said, I bet you they're there. Because Hirsch, of course, had just returned from a nine week trip in Europe and where he attended six music festivals. He had just been in the music festival up north, and there was a brilliantly talented musician and composer. And Libby said, I am sure they're there. And then I wrote to the third friend. They were a trio, the Three Musketeers, Hirsch and Yaniv. Yaniv and his family had gone away at the last minute to Cyprus for that Shabbat. And I knew his phone would be on. He used his phone on Shabbat. So I quickly wrote to Yaniv and I said, are the boys here? And I sent a screenshot of the Nova that Libby had found on my phone. And immediately Yaniv said, they're there. He said, but I'll find them. And as we're, you know, chaos starts. We're seeing videos of the kids at the Nova screaming and running. And everyone, tragically, probably has seen those. And I just realized we are in so much trouble because too much time had elapsed from when we saw in our group. I love you, I'm sorry. And we couldn't reach him, and we couldn't reach on there. I got up to go to the bathroom in our bedroom and I collapsed outside the bedroom and I hit the back of my head on our tile floor. I made like A very guttural, very primal scream. And then I said, God is here. God is here. God is here. And I don't know where it came from, but it was this feeling of, I am no longer in this world, like I've now stepped through. I knew that everything from October 12, 1969, when I was born, until that minute was now over. And it was. It was over. But it was, in my estimation, was that God was there. I was being taken into another place. But it wasn't without a plan. I wasn't aware of the plan, but I very much felt complete terror and trauma immediately. And God is here.
- [19:47]
Dan Sinor
I saw you and John a few months after that in Pesach of 2024, during Cholub Moed. I came to see you guys and we did a recorded podcast because it was video of Hirsch that had just been released. And so our conversation was largely about the video that had just been released by Hamas of Hirsch speaking to camera. The impression was that this was the first time you had seen footage of Hirsch talking to you. I now know it was not the first time you saw footage of Hirsch talking to you. I mean, not a propaganda video, but to you and your family. Can you talk about that?
- [20:23]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
So after the Seder on the first night of Passover, and it was horrible, it was a horrific Seder where we did the bare bones minimum with the most loving, compassionate, caring, merciful people you've ever met in your life. And still it was like my skin was being burned off of me and John and our girls. And everyone at the. The table was weeping. We were in agony. And we walked home afterwards. And as soon as we got home, we were contacted and we always had our phones with us. From when Hirsch was stolen until he was killed, we always had our phones with us because at all times we were working, and at all times anything could happen. And it was all pikuach nefesh. It was all for the sanctity of trying to save him. And I received a phone call at 1:00 clock in the morning, Israel time, from someone who said, I'm sending you a video on signal. And we press play. And I, like, fell back on the couch. And it's Hirsch. And he says in English, mama Dada, Libyan, orly. It's me, Hirsch. I'm here in Gaza, almost 200 days. And he spoke to us in English. They didn't let him move. We didn't see his arm. His arms were down. He looked terrible. But he was talking right to us. And he said a few different things. Which I think I mention in the book. And at the end of what he said is, and I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope that I see you again soon. And then it was over. And we didn't even tell our girls about it. We didn't tell our parents about it. We didn't tell anyone because we were very scared for everyone who was involved in getting that video to us, and we were scared for him, and we didn't know exactly what it meant. And then 36 hours later, we got a call from the Shin Bet saying, prepare yourself. Within the hour on signal, Hamas is releasing a video of Hirsch. So our first assumption was it must be the video that we have seen. But we quickly called our girls and told them to come home, and we called our parents and warned them, don't watch. We didn't want anyone and the family to watch the video before we watch the video, because we didn't know if it was going to be a terrible video. There have been terrible things that have been recorded in the past in different hostage crises. And that video was the propaganda video where Hirsch is screaming in Hebrew and yelling, and they let him move his arm, and so we do see the stump of his left forearm, his dominant arm. And that was the video that we allowed to be released. And so when you met us and you were asking us about that video, or all of the news was asking us about this footage that we saw, it was about that video, but we had seen this other video, and we never talked about it because we were so worried of what would the ramifications be for him or for the people who had gotten that video to us.
- [23:44]
Dan Sinor
So now fast forwarding to August 30 and August 31, which is when you slowly, gradually learn the news that he's been killed, because that was hours and hours of you and John sort of waiting. You knew something, but you didn't have the final News.
- [24:02]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
So around 9 o' clock on Saturday night, I had just dropped our daughter Orly off at a gathering for hostage families and people who were supporting hostage families. Our other daughter was at the stadium of the soccer stadium of Hirsch's team that he loved, Hapoel Yerushalayim. And when I came back into the house, I had dropped Orly at this gathering for hostages. I came back in the house, and as soon as John heard me come in the house, he said, come here. And he was in our bedroom, and I went to our bedroom, and he was sitting on the side of the bed with his feet on the floor. And he was holding his hand. He was holding his phone in his hand. And he said, artu, who is a friend of Hirsch's, just called me from the stadium. And he said that he's seeing rumors online that six bodies have been found in Rafah, under Rafah, in a tunnel. And immediately I said, what are the other names?
- [25:04]
Dan Sinor
And.
- [25:05]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
And he named the people. And when he said Carmel Gott's name, I immediately thought it was true. Because we had accidentally, a few weeks earlier, extrapolated from our intelligence officer who never told us anything. He accidentally told us that Hirsch was with an old woman. She was 40 and she was a kibbutznikid. And so we were like, oh, okay. And when we left the room, we were like, he's with Carmel. Because we knew Carmel was the only woman from a kibbutz who was 40 who was still being held hostage. Anyway, it was a horrific night of saying. John handed me my book of Tehillim, my book of Psalms. And he said, now it's time to pray. And we started to say Tehillim on a loop for the next seven hours. And more and more people started to join us because the rumors spread. And at four in the morning, John's phone rang, and I was sitting right next to him. And I heard through the phone our intelligence officer say, we're downstairs. And I knew that our lives were over. Our lives from before were completely over. Because what I realize now is that on October 7th, we stepped through this doorway, and then for 330 days, we were in this sort of purgatory, intermission challenge. And then Hirsch was killed. And, I mean, I say it's unfortunate. I call them the angels of death who walked in our house, four people to tell us that Hirsch was killed.
- [26:55]
Dan Sinor
Even after that, for some time after that, it was actually, I think until day 496, you still didn't know what Hirsch's spirits were in captivity. What did you fear? Before we get to what you Learned on day 496, in terms of where his spirits were, you were so focused on where was his head at while he was in captivity.
- [27:18]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
My assumption had been that he was in horrible shape. My assumption was he was in this room, a five by eight foot room. So I'm picturing my bathroom with 28 people smashed in. We know that 18 of them were killed by the grenades or by machine gun fire. We know that people were horribly wounded. Tons of screaming, tons of dust, tons of violence. He watched his best friend get blown up. He loses his arm. He's taken and kidnapped. So my assumption was he must be completely broken the whole time that he was there. And John felt differently. John actually was convinced that he wasn't broken. And I. I don't know if it was just like, from being a mother or if it was me projecting what I feel like I would be like if that had been me. And I witnessed what he witnessed, and I lost my dominant arm. And we knew they were starving, and we knew they were in terrible shape. And we had heard intelligence was giving a lot of the families, like little bits of information. And when the families would see each other, we would share the little bits of information that we had. We knew they were starving, we knew they were miserable. We knew they were in horrible conditions. So that was my assumption.
- [28:44]
Dan Sinor
And then on day 496, you have a meeting and you write after that meeting what was like a revelation, like this totally new discovery. You write, Hirsch knew we were sprinting to the end of this world to save him. He knew while an upside down, sickening captivity after the horrors of October 7th. Hirsch knew. Hirsch heard me. He knew we were fighting for him with one arm and a crusty, blood stained mat. Hungry, sunless and in pain of every kind. He knew we were battling for him. I hope and pray it gave him hope and confidence that we were doing all we could. I hope and pray it gave him strength during his torment. He knew, I will be forever sorry we failed him, but he knew we were trying. What did he know?
- [29:30]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
So on the evening of 496 is when we met the tremendously benevolent or Levi, who was released from captivity on day 491 and found out his wife Einav had been killed in that bomb shelter. And he was finally being reunited with his young son. And yet his brother Michael had become friends with us through this journey of trying to get them free. And Michael called John right after Shabbat on day 491 and said, I just have to tell you that it's very strange, or came home, you know, we're like, reuniting. It's extremely emotional. We had to tell him that Einar died in the bomb shelter. And he asked us how Hirsch is. And we were thinking they didn't know each other. Why was he asking how Hirsch is? And he said he would like to meet you. And so, even though he was still hospitalized, John and I went to meet him on the evening of 4 96. And we spent a few hours, just the three of us, with or explaining how he remet Hirsch in the tunnels for a few days during the first deal that happened at the end of November of 2023. And it is so appropriate that Or's parents named him or, because, as you know, the Hebrew word or means light. And he has brought so much light, not just to us, but for us. It is clear as day, because we walked into that hospital in complete and utter darkness, metaphorically and literally. And we walked out and he had given us this nugget that I still carry with me. And he had explained. Well, he explained many things, which I talk about in the book. But the final thing he said to us when his therapist came in and said, you guys have been here way too long. And I was so happy because he said, no, no, I need some more time. I was like, it's him, not us. We want to go. He won't let us leave. And he said, you need to know. He says this to me. He looks at me and he says, you need to know. He heard you. And I said, what do you mean? He said, he heard on the radio when you were talking about meeting the Secretary of State. And I said, he heard on the news reporting that I had met the Secretary of State. He said, no, he heard your voice on the radio in Gaza. Someone was listening to the radio and you were being interviewed in English describing who you had met and what you and John were doing to get him out. And all of a sudden, here we've been in torture for almost 500 days, thinking, we know we did everything we could, but he didn't know. And all of a sudden, we're being given this gift 150 days after we've buried him, after we buried part of ourselves that he knew. And there's something about that that was like a flutter of Hirsch back. It was a gift. It was a gift of light. And we've continued to carry that with us.
- [32:54]
Narrator
Right now, tens of thousands of Israeli veterans are battling ptsd. But only some of these men and women are able to recover through conventional treatment. Because often what veterans need is not necessarily a therapist, but a friend who can truly relate to their experiences on the battlefield. That's where Buddy Line comes in. A program of American Friends of Israel Navy Seals, Buddy Line pairs Israeli Navy SEAL veterans with IDF combat veterans, veterans struggling with severe ptsd. The pair spent a year rebuilding trust, confidence, and connection. It's warrior to warrior care, and for more than 600 struggling veterans to date, it has been a lifeline back to society. For a brief video on Buddyline and to support the program, visit Afins Us forward, slash, warrior Care. That's a F I, N S.
- [33:54]
Dan Sinor
Or
- [33:54]
Narrator
use the link in the show notes. Your gift, big or small, can help someone find their way back.
- [34:04]
Dan Sinor
You talk a lot in the book. Now that you've become an actor, you've had to learn how to act. My first question is, what do you mean by that?
- [34:12]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Well, when Hirsch was still alive, I think that was much more relevant, that I said I was faking acting, lying, or pretending, because every day I'd wake up and I just wanted to lay on the floor in the fetal position and weep. I was in complete torture. John and I both were. Every hostage family was in complete and utter torture and torment and angst and misery. And those words are so hollow, and those are aspirational words for how we all felt. We felt so much worse than those words. But I don't know better words to explain it. It's especially torturous that, you know, your child or your partner or your parent or your grandparent or your granddaughter or your sibling is being tortured. But we. I was also looking at John and seeing John be tortured, and he was watching me be tortured. And yet we had to go fight for these people. And for us, that meant pushing aside this mental, emotional, psychological, spiritual and religious pain that we were suffering in order to get to this greater goal. And so it was a lot of packing bags and satchels and sitting on them and pulling the buckle tight and saying, that's going over there, because I've got work to do, so I have to fake that I'm a human, pretend to be human, go. I mean, we said that to ourselves all the time. And I think that, you know, a lot of what the book is about now is I get to be honest about what was actually happening. And especially after Hirsch was killed, you know, that's what I grapple with now. I know that I'm not normal. I know that I'm. I was talking to my therapist, who's this wise, older gentleman, and we were talking about how they Sometimes, you know, the American Psychiatric association or whatever it's called, and I'm very sorry. I'm sure there are many people who belong to that association. In this room, I'm in New York, they say that you have a window where you're allowed to grieve, and then if you keep grieving, you have a disorder. So I was like, sign me up. I have that disorder. I mean, think about it. Like the word disorder, you know, dis comes from the Latin root meaning opposite. So there's like, Disappear, Disagree. Dis. Ease. Disorder means the opposite of order. And I am the opposite of order. I'm completely out of order. And my life was out of order. You know, I buried my son, which I want that order to be the other way around. And I'm not unique, right? There are people in this room who have buried children. I'm not unique. There are millions of people around the world like John and me who have buried their children. But there's this confusion that I have that I'm trying to figure out, what do I do with those 330 days? What do I do with those suitcases that I packed and I shoved into that storage locker? And so I'm a very twisted, messy person. And I think that the pain became so great and confusing, and that's also where the book came from. My soul was buckling from the weight of all of this, the suffering. And so I poured it out into this book. And I got to stop pretending, lying,
- [37:42]
Dan Sinor
acting, and faking this end to lying, faking, acting. I mean, it comes up a lot in the book. One point is at Hersh's first yard site, the one year anniversary, and you write here that countless people sang the usual songs to us. I hope with time it's getting better. You write so well. Meaning, of course, but also tone deaf in their implicit call for us to, quote, be better. I don't blame anyone for trying. I wouldn't know what to say to me either. But I'm going to break some very heavy news, so you better sit down. Just like when the people come to tell you your person is dead, Please sit down. It is not getting better. And is that just what sits with you? And you just want people to understand that, because it comes up a lot in the book is like, you're almost like you're shaking people. Like, I'm done acting.
- [38:38]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
That is definitely part of it. And I also think, you know, we have this obsession that it's got to get better. We don't want to believe that people are going to carry pain forever. And I actually think that that is emotionally barbaric and gaslighting to people who are suffering loss and pain and mourning and grief. And so I'm really trying to speak my truth. And also these thousands of people who have since reached out to John and me who recognize that that's exactly how they feel as well. I'm sure there are many people who feel differently. I sure hope there are. But in our experience, and I do preface the book by saying I have no perspective, people this Book is written while the truck is still on top of me. I had to, like, extricate my arm, and I'm tapping on my keyboard from underneath a semi truck. I'm writing the book from underneath this herculean, colossal pain. And, you know, someone said, well, what if you wait five years and then you have some perspective? And I thought, well, why? Why can't I give you my pain? Why can't you carry a molecule of my pain? And so it really is packages of pain. The book is packages of pain. It's me turned inside out. It's ugly, it's throbbing, it's pulsing. I don't know, because it's me. I think it's a challenging read. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be read. It means it's a challenging read. You should know that the writing itself was incredibly easy. And it was like, take, take, please take my pain. It was easy to sit down. John was super helpful. He would tell me, why don't you write about this? Or why don't you write about that? And, you know, in the beginning, it was also really helpful. He said, right about the first day of school of 8th grade, that's great. And yet the reading was scalding. And so I've only read it once, and John only read it once. And then I had to read it out loud for the audiobook. And I was reading it out loud for the audiobook, and the producer or the director from Random House, who was in London, I was reading it, and he said, oh, you shouldn't cry at this part. And I said, do you think I'm trying to cry? Trying to cry? I was. You know, the reading was really almost unbearable.
- [41:08]
Dan Sinor
The writing, obviously, is your story in the context of this collective trauma that the country's going through. And so there are, like, these flares of other traumas shooting up all over the place. That makes the entire book so much more intense. And I want to talk for a moment about Oshrat, and I'll just read this and have you finish the story. So at the end of the Shiva, there's this tradition where two people come and pull you up on the seventh day of the Shiva and say, basically, stop mourning. Stop mourning. And this congregation that you and John are very involved with, Hakel, which features prominently in the book, and you talk about Oshrat, One of the founders of our beloved Hakel, took my broken pawn, her cool, confident hand, and pulled me up, up into my new world. Her son Yuval, a friend of Hirsch's, had Been in the army fighting to free the hostages from the beginning. Always known for being larger than life and for his mighty and thunderous voice, Yuval would shriek Hirsch's name throughout Gaza. He had written to me on his own birthday in June to say that all he wanted for his birthday was to find Hirsch and bring him home. Yuval roared so that Hirsch would know they were trying to come save him. Hirsch, did you hear him? You wrote. 111 days after our Shiva, I would get the call from John telling me Yuval had been killed while serving in Gaza. At the end of Yuval's Shiva, it would be my hand put into Oshrat's broken paw, pulling her up into the new world where we both now live. It's like the multiplication of these stories. What was that doing for you while you were in this fight?
- [42:52]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
I mean, it was this feeling of how much more? How many more? And Ashrat wrote to me this morning. She wrote a beautiful poem this morning because of Yom Hazikaron, that is, this evening. And it's the day that they very much feel connected to because of Yuval. But I wrote back to her, and I said, you and I both know that every day is Yom Hazikaron for the parents of children who've been buried. We don't need Yom Hazikaron. And you and I have talked about how there's a tradition that four times a year we say the Yizkor prayer, the memorial remembrance prayer for our seven closest relatives. Mother, father, daughter, son, brother, sister, spouse. And John and I were discussing it just a couple weeks ago, because you say it on the last day of Passover as one of the four days. And I said, I actually find it insulting. And you know how much I'm like a cheerleader for Judaism and those rabbis from 2,000 years ago. But it's actually insulting to ask me to say a prayer called Remember. Because what I would like is, for four times a year, for three minutes, which is the amount of time it takes to say Yizkor to forget.
- [44:12]
Dan Sinor
The school that Hirsch went to. Himmelfarb. How many of his schoolmates?
- [44:17]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Nine boys. And one of his teachers, one of his rabbis, Rabbi avi Goldberg. So 10 himmelfarb boys fell since October 7th. Well, I call Rav Abi a boy because he's younger than I am, but he was a father of nine or eight. Eight. The school took a tremendous hit.
- [44:39]
Dan Sinor
So against all of that backdrop, I learned a new phrase from you called toxic positivity.
- [44:46]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Isn't that the best thing you've ever heard in your lives? I met this young woman named Oria a couple of weeks ago. She's writing a book, and she has all of these really interesting. She's super wise and intelligent, and she has all these thoughts about the philosophy of mourning and loss. And we were having a conversation about how in Israel in particular, I feel like there's this complete obsession with we must get better and we must be resilient, which that word is so provocative in a country where there's so much still active pain and brokenness. And she said, well, it's toxic positivity. And I was like, what? Oh, my gosh, you're brilliant. And she said, no, no, it's a term. It's not me. Which Kola Kavod. Like, she didn't want to take credit for something that wasn't hers. But I kept thinking how amazing. I love that idea. And then I got stuck with it, and I went home and I wrote into Google, I said, what is the opposite of toxic positivity? And it said, everybody, get ready. Tragic optimism. Holy crap. Were in a shul. But I'm telling you, I was like, that's me. That's me. I am an optimist, But I'm a tragic optimist. I've been through the wringer. I've had, like, crazy pain that will be with me. It's right here, right now, for the rest of my life. But I'm an optimist. But I'm a tragic optimist. So then I say, because I'm so hungry. Who coined that term? And then I knew, because who coined that term? Viktor Frankl. And I said, thank you, Hirsch.
- [46:35]
Dan Sinor
There's these wonderful letters that go back and forth between you and Hirsch in the book. This is one you had written to him, obviously, when he was alive, and he was getting ready to go on his big adventure. And you read him. So Hershey poo, I'm so happy for you that you finally get to go on your adventure, even if this is just the practice trip. Go out and enjoy, learn, grow, and soak in all the good stuff waiting out there. And then you have this quote. Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings. And then you go on. So my bracha for you as you embark on this fun trip is to remember who you are and where you come from. Use that beautiful mind God gave you to be smart, kind, compassionate, funny, caring and wise, and use your wings to have a most delightful adventure. Enjoy. Enjoy. And know I love you. Bigger than that big blue sky. Bigger. Come home in two weeks or two months. I'm proud of who you are and can't wait to hear about your adventures everywhere you go. Always know I love you. It was. I was reading the book, I kept thinking, and you and I have talked about this. All the off ramps. There are so many off ramps, like. And you talked about some of them at the beginning of this evening, and you're just like, there was a plan. There's no off ramps. Do you say that to yourself? Because thinking about the off ramps can make you. Because I think about, like, you want your kids to have roots and you want them to have wings, but when they have wings, they take risks. They make decisions that could end really badly. Is this just your way of just, like, shutting out any conversation about the what ifs?
- [48:04]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Well, I've always had this orientation to the world and seen the world through, this idea that there's this magnificent tapestry that we're not always privy to, see all of it. And so it doesn't quite make sense to us. And one of the chapters early on in the book, Aunt Nameless, is about that idea that John's dad, Stanton Pollin, had shared. He was a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon, and he had shared with me once an episode that he had in the hospital at St. Joe's Hospital in Chicago. And to me, he tells me this whole story. And I said, my gosh, how can you not believe in God when you hear that story? And he said, really? I just think it's coincidence. And, you know, here were two people who just saw the exact same situation in extremely different ways, and it had happened to him. And to me, it was so obvious that this was God's plan in this random story that he had shared, this random occurrence that he had been part of. And I do think that probably from the outside when I speak like this, especially people for whom this absolutely makes no sense and is bananas, and that what's happened to us is a total tragedy, mistake, error, punishment, whatever. You can choose your adventure. But to me, it's extremely obvious that this was the plan. I don't have to like it, and it doesn't give a pass to the people who could have done something to make it different. It just means that for whatever reason that I don't know, you know, I don't have the hubris to assume that I will ever know why it had to be exactly this way. You know, I say to myself, okay, people lose children, but why, like, this. And why at that exact time? Right? Why on day three 28 and not on day 421 and not on day 562? And why not in the bomb shelter next to Anair, next to his best friend? And why with those people? Why with Alex and Almog and Ori and Carmel and Eden? Why? And I don't know, but I know it was supposed to be that way. And I think it's a little bit cheating saying, no, like, I know it, rather than saying, I have faith in it or I believe it, because I think knowing is much more concrete. So it's like, I don't have faith that this is a cup. I know it's a cup. And so if it was new to me, maybe it would be a coping mechanism, but because I've always been this, like, annoying. Oh, my gosh, do you see that on Tuesday, that happened to you because of Shabbat. So I think I've had that in my.
- [51:04]
Dan Sinor
Yeah, but you can understand what you've been through would shake that. You could have that. I mean, there were plenty of people who came out of the Shoah, out of the Holocaust who were deeply religious, and it shook them. It shook their fidelity to Judaism. That was not uncommon. So you're describing it like it's obvious that this is where you landed.
- [51:22]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Well, it kind of shows me that what I felt before was actually really authentic. Because sometimes we think that we're something, and then when something happens and you see, oh, I'm actually not a conscious, cool, collected person, which I've never thought I am, and John will attest to that. But I actually, you know, a lot of times people say, has your faith changed? Has your. If anything, am probably more a believer? Because it was abundantly obvious to me that night when those four angels of death came and sat on our couches across from us, and Libby was here, and John was next to me, and Orlie was next to him, and they sat across and they told us that Hirsch was killed. That was, in my life until now, the closest I've ever felt to God. Because I knew. I knew that it was not a punishment and it was not a mistake. That right now, in this moment of excruciation, this is your destiny to be in this place right now. And it was horrible. You don't have to like it. You know, a lot of things in life happen that you can say is part of your reality and you don't like, I hate that Hirsch isn't here. I hate that part of you know what's been dealt to us. I hate that. But I also know that he's not supposed to be here now. And the way that I know it is because he's not here.
- [52:57]
Dan Sinor
You met with a group of gap year students, American students, who were spending a gap year in Israel, like, weeks ago, and one of them asked you about grief.
- [53:06]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
So this young woman on Young Judea year course asked, can you explain grief to us? There's about 100 kids in the room. And I said, everybody, picture someone who you really love, who's really core to your existence. So it could be one of your parents or your siblings or your very best friend or your grandma, or, you know, think of someone who you need to breathe. Are they in this room? And they all start, you know, shaking their heads, no. And I said, do you not love them anymore? And suddenly they got it. And I said, that's grief. Just because Hirsch isn't in this room, my love for him has continued to grow, completely continued to grow. John and I talk about it all the time. It's this living breath, bizarre phenomenon. It's like bamboo. It just continues to grow. And what's so magnificent about that is, first of all, it means that love is stronger than death and love is stronger than time. And what we grew to figure out is that you can love someone that you've never met. And we saw that because as we were trying desperately to humanize the hostages when they were being held is we were trying to make Hirsch a person and not a number. And people grew to love him without ever having met him. And so when he was killed, there were people who really grieved him and still grieve him, because the love will continue to grow. And so I started, and I talk in the book about suddenly having this different relationship and dynamic with grief, because originally, grief feels like this super scary, awful, horrible thing, you know, Katie, bar the door. I don't want to let this thing into my house. And all that energy that I'm spending to, like, shove myself against the door to prevent this grief from coming in. I realized the grief is just this badge of love because we don't grieve for people we don't care about. I saw a notice on our street recently of a man who had passed away on our street. And it said, here are the hours is when you can come if you'd like to pay your condolences. And I thought, oh, that's too bad. And I kept walking. I didn't know him, and I didn't know the family. And I didn't grieve, and I wasn't in pain because I didn't love him. And so when I'm feeling this sensation now, I realize it's the price we pay for love. And it's a price that we will be glad to pay. Because the alternative is that maybe I would have just had my two amazing daughters. We have very good friends who have two daughters, and they're a perfect four. No one's missing. But we had this extra delicious cookie with us for 23 years and 334 days on Earth. And the price is that I will be in pain for the rest of my life. And it's worth it.
- [56:12]
Dan Sinor
I told you that I was surprised by the end of the book. I don't want to give away the end of the book. I want everyone to read the book. But why do you think people will have that reaction? The surprise?
- [56:22]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
I don't think they'll be surprised. Why do you think they'll be surprised?
- [56:27]
Dan Sinor
Do you want me to give it away?
- [56:29]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
No.
- [56:29]
Dan Sinor
Okay.
- [56:30]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Spoiler.
- [56:31]
Narrator
Yeah.
- [56:32]
Dan Sinor
It was surprisingly upbeat.
- [56:34]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
It's interesting because I also think it's kind of upbeat. But the handful of people who I know who've read it, they're wrong. They're wrong.
- [56:43]
Dan Sinor
No. A friend of mine messaged me last night who had just read it, and she's like, I'm crying here at the end. The end just broke me. I'm like, really? I was uplifted by it.
- [56:52]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
I was also. But I think John also thought it was really sad. I don't know.
- [56:57]
Dan Sinor
Well, maybe it's.
- [56:58]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Maybe we'll vote later. Everybody go home. Do your reading.
- [57:02]
Dan Sinor
Well, I guess there's your point that you keep saying in the book, it's not getting better, and it's never gonna get better. But there's almost like this sense, like you're not giving up. You know, you write somewhere in the book that the thing about the Jewish story and Jewish learning is it never ends. And you were a Jewish educator.
- [57:19]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
Well, I think what happens. I pray. I really do pray. I mean, you know, I pray every day. I'm a big believer in prayer for all sorts of reasons. And I do pray every day, twice a day. I pray for our recovery and. And healing and consolation. I have, like, a whole way that I do it. But what I pray is that we get stronger so that it gets different. Because I think that what's hard is that it's always going to be here, this huge, heavy, clunky grief, and I have to carry it I have to carry it. But if I get stronger, then maybe I can carry it in a more graceful way and a more easy way. But I'm not there yet. But I'm a tragic optimist.
- [58:08]
Dan Sinor
I will say, Rachel, that this book, and we've talked about this, I really think the way generations and generations of young people read Elie Wiesel's Night, or continue to read and continue to read Viktor Frankl as did Hirsch as he was evangelizing Victor Frankl while in captivity to the other hostages. I do think when we see you again, we'll be like that. You in many respects, you don't want to hear this. I will say it. You're going to cringe me seeing it. I do feel like you are a figure of that I don't say importance or stature, but of just illumination and inspiration and education of our time. And I thank you for this book and I thank you for being here tonight.
- [59:03]
Narrator
That's our show for today. If you value the Call Me Back podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members only show, Inside Call Me Back. Inside Call Me Back is where Nadavael, Amit Segal and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling. To subscribe, please follow the link in the show notes or you can go to arkmedia.org that's ark media.org call me back is produced and edited by Lon Benatar. ARC Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aretti. Our production manager is Brittany Cohn. Our community manager is Ava Weiner. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo, sound and video editing by Liquid Audio. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Sinor.