According to the Talmud, every life is like a world unto itself. If you murder a person, it’s as if you murdered an entire world. That idea was the inspiration for one of the most painful pieces I’ve ever had to write, Chaya Zissel Braun And The End of Worlds.
Perhaps you remember her sweet pink face. Chaya Zissel was murdered by a drive-over terrorist as she sat innocent of any crime, in her stroller, as her parents waited for a train.
The Brauns had just brought Chaya Zissel to the Western Wall for her first visit.
Making her murder especially painful and poignant was the fact that the couple had difficulty conceiving. Chaya Zissel was very much a wanted, even longed-for child.
But God is good. Today, the Brauns were blessed with a new baby girl. No one can take the place of the sweet infant they lost. But at least their arms are not empty.
May this new little girl bring generations of Jews to life to live in our beloved country.
May she be the start of a brand new world.
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It is a pity that Yemima Mosquera, a righteous convert to Judaism, who was murdered in the same terror attack that took Chaya Zissel Braun’s life, did not have the chance to marry or have offspring. I wrote about Yemima in Yemima: She Made Us Beautiful. There will be no worlds from Yemima, either. Nor someone new for her mother to hold.
