Posted on 02/12/24
Sharon Negri, mother of Neriya Negri, who fell in battle on Simchat Torah, sent me the two pictures below and wrote as follows:
“Several days ago, I attended a mosaic workshop. In order to create a mosaic, it is first necessary to shatter whole tiles into pieces with a hammer.
I came to the workshop in a highly emotional state and released all my pain in breaking the tiles. And then, while shattering the tiles, and afterwards in gluing the pieces together, I felt how deeply significant and healing it was to have found a workshop like this following the loss of my Neriya.
My reality was shattered and I am gathering up the pieces. But I am not just gathering them up; I am making a new creation out of them. I really and truly believe that this is what is demanded from me. It’s a divine demand and also a demand from myself: to take my broken heart, my broken reality, and create life. A new and different life, but life.
If they would show us a woman breaking tiles with a hammer and tell us that she is creating something, we would raise an eyebrow. After all, she is destroying, not creating. But without seeing the continuation of the story, how she glues the broken pieces back together, we would only see destruction.
I truly believe that this is what all of us are going through together at this time. The shattering has been so great that we might think that everything has been destroyed. But we must create something new, with G-d’s help, out of the broken pieces. Our story will continue.”