Transcript
A (0:00)
Last night, I had the incredible honor of interviewing Rachel Goldberg Polin about her new book, When We See youe Again, about her late son, Hersh, who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas. Rachel was unbelievable. I was so honored to have interviewed her, thanks to the generosity of uja. And I got to do this in White Plains in front of 1200 people in a synagogue. It was a truly holy experience and one I will never, ever forget. The video of this is also on my YouTube channel, and I have clips on Instagram. But I hope that you listen and learn from Rachel about hope, love, grief, life, all of the above.
B (0:48)
I feel your love, and I'm deeply grateful. And I know that this community has been with us from the morning of October 7th until this very second. And I'm so thankful. And John, so thankful.
A (1:12)
Well, as I mentioned backstage, not only are you a hero to so many of us, but now you've gone ahead and written, like, the most amazing book ever. Your wonders never cease. Congratulations on writing this memory keeper for all time, this transcription of pain that I will never forget, and neither will anyone who reads it. I just wanted to start with a quote, if that's okay. You said. What I realize now, since my heart is shattered into tiny pieces, is that it is easier to share than. Than when it was one mighty, solid and strong heart. So please, take a shard. Be careful, they are sharp. That is a warning to us of what is coming next, which is full of beauty and eloquence. Rachel, why write this book, especially when it brings you so much pain to do so?
B (2:11)
I think actually the problem was that I was buckling. My soul was buckling underneath the weight of the pain of losing Hirsch after trying so hard. And I almost felt like I was choking, like I was up to my neck, drowning in this pain and loss and grief and mourning that I know many people in this room have experienced losing loved ones. I know there are people in this room who have buried children. And it was almost like trying to do the Heimlich maneuver to myself. And at a certain point, John said, start writing. And I don't think of this book as a memoir. It is not a memoir. I don't think of it as a tell all. I don't think of it as a here's what happened, here's what she said, here's what he did. I really feel like this was packages of pain that I was just handing over. And I think what ended up happening were two things. I think that this is, at its essence, it's a love letter. Swaddled in pain, or perhaps it's a pain letter swallowed in love. And I also believe, as many of you have heard me talk about, that one of the worst, unfortunate, broken parts of me is that I have all of these loving, caring, kind people who approach me in the most pure, innocuous way, who say, how are you? And I find it to be the most challenging question that anyone can ask me. Because to me, I think, well, do you not see this dagger still sticking out of my heart? It's sticking out of my heart. How can you not see it? But people can't see it. And so this is the answer to how are you? It's a very long answer. But I realized I actually had a conversation yesterday morning on one of the news shows, and the anchors were asking me during the commercial break. They said, but what should we say? We have a colleague who's going through something really hard, and should we. You know, we keep asking her how she is. And I said, you realize you're putting her in a position where either she's going to tell you the truth and you don't want it, you don't. Or you're going to make her lie to you. Which is really mean because she's really going through something. And I talk about in the book, I don't know if you read this part yet, but I said I had a conversation at one point. There was someone in an interview who said, how are you? And I said, I'm suffering. And he said, no, but really, how are you? And I said, I'm really suffering. And it's like he hated me and had to then go into a conversation with me. And I hated him for asking me, And I told him, and he didn't accept what I was saying. So that is the long answer to what is this, why and what.
