On Friday at about 3:45 a.m. the phone rang.
My friend Bob called with the news we were dreading. Our dear friend Judy Ference, suffering from cancer, had passed away.
I had spoken to her husband, Scott, seven hours earlier, and there was no “Judy could die any hour” immediacy in our conversation.
Judy was a healer, a nurse who had a fascination for the treatment of wounds. I wish I could have her help me with the feelings I now have; they are nothing short of emotional wounds.
She and her husband raised five wonderful children. When Judy’s face was filled with happiness the whole world seemed happy. When her daughter Eliana was married, I’ll never forget the utter, pure joy bursting forward from her eyes and smile. I remember eating meals in her sukkah, but first she’d pass out a meticulously printed menu as if we were entering a restaurant. Judy’s sense of humor could make anyone double over in laughter.
She was a wordsmith, actually appearing on the TV game show “Wheel of Fortune.” Our cardinal rule: Never, ever end up on an opposing side of Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble with Judy.
There was this spark, this never-ending faith …
The day before Judy died, I watched from the back aisle of Levinson’s as Esther Nechama Margolese, the mother of my close friend Yacov, was eulogized. The room was packed with mourners. Everyone had been impacted by the stories of love and sharing of this wonderful soul, who I knew mostly through her son. She was missed so much already.
The parking lot was gridlocked with mourners. And with grace, the friends and relatives escorted her to the hearse. The crowd was like an ocean of souls. Mrs. Margolese was carried like a vessel on this sea of holiness.
The passing of Rabbi Manuel Poliakoff, Meir Steinharter, and even Gov. William Donald Schaefer and others.
It was a difficult few days just after the seders.
Usually after the seders I’m left feeling that the challenge is to get myself equally spiritually prepared for the final days of the holiday. And then I need to take something, like a piece of afikomen, with me to last me with strong lessons for the weeks leading into Shavuos.
I am left wondering if these deaths during the Passover season meant that they had rid themselves of the mitzrayim—the narrowness—of their illness. Were they now free? Did they understand the story of the haggadah better than those left behind?
Judy healed people. Esther Nechama, it was said during her eulogy, helped young women prepare for the holiness of their upcoming marriages. Getting through the narrow passage of life to the “other side” successfully.
Mrs. Margolese, Judy Ference, the two with family members whom I mourn, maybe their exodus was more real and alive than ours.
Out of pain, with HaShem, and with a family who will miss them dearly. Yet with families who understood the goodness of their lives. Perhaps this is just part of life, but the holidays somehow enhance our emotions, whether they are joyful or painful.
So, on Friday with hours before Shabbat and then Sunday evening the beginning of yom tov, my phone rang here at the JEWISH TIMES.
It was another friend. A lady who not by choice is on a first-name basis with loss and the questioning and fighting and never give up spirit that it takes to survive all of this.
Michelle Schwartz, one of my life’s heroines, called. This friend, who had been through the unthinkable with her husband, Eddie, and family and friends with the loss of her son, Gilad, some seven months ago, phoned with good news.
Her neighbor’s daughter was engaged to be married. There was now a mazel tov! Who better than Michelle to help uplift my spirits on a gray Friday?
The cycle continues.
There’s plenty of goodness to that cycle.
Through that narrow passage, that mitzrayim of life, a new young couple will create a life together.
It’s a seder, an order.
Sometimes you find the afikomen later. It helps us get through mitzrayim, the narrow passage we choose to call life.

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