WEBVTT - Rachel Goldberg-Polin on Why Love Is the Strongest Force We Have 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:05.840 No one has all the answers, but when we ask 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:10.680 the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths, 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:16.560 closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.280 Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.800 together to challenge the status quo and our own ways 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:27.360 of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not? 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:29.080 And who says? 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:30.600 So? 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:35.920 Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's time 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:42.680 to question everything. When we celebrate Mother's Day, so much 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.120 of the focus is on what our mothers gave us, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.879 the lessons they taught us, the sacrifices they made, the 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.640 ways they shaped who we became. But today's conversation explores 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.800 a different side of motherhood, what love looks like when 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.200 it's asked to survive the unbearable. 0:00:58.560 --> 0:00:58.680 Now. 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:00.640 A few months ago, I was asked to speak to 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.280 four hundred and fifty Jewish women in Atlanta about Jewish joy, 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.280 and I really wrestled with it because, if I'm being honest, 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.920 I didn't and I don't feel joyful yet. The wound 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.679 of October seventh still feels raw. I scroll through my 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.880 phone and I see anti Semitic rhetoric. I read about 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.520 Jews gunned down in DC and Bondai Beach, and nearly 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.200 every day I walk to get coffee in my La neighborhood, 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.039 and I often think about Rachel Goldberg Poland and her 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.000 son Hirsh, and all of the hostages and survivors, and 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.320 sometimes I would just have a little cry to myself. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.440 So when I sat down to write that speech, Rachel 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.880 was already in my head and in my heart, this 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.199 woman I'd never met, whose pain I'd been carrying alongside 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.240 her from thousands of miles away, and then somehow she 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.440 was sitting across from me. I'm still a little stunned 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.240 by it, Grateful beyond words for her time and her trust, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.600 and her willingness to let me ask questions that I'd 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:58.680 been holding for the last several years. For those who 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.120 don't know her story, Rachel Goldberg Poland became known to 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.360 the world after her son Hirsh, was taken hostage during 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.400 the October seventh attacks in Israel. For three hundred and 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.640 thirty days, Rachel and her husband fought publicly and relentlessly 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.560 to bring Hersh home alive. The world watched a mother 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:18.440 refuse to surrender hope. 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:19.560 In real time. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.280 Hirsh was eventually murdered in captivity, and yet even in 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:28.359 the wake of unspeakable tragedy, Rachel emerged not consumed by hatred, 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.520 but as a voice of extraordinary humanity, compassion, moral clarity, 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:34.400 and love. 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.160 I think Peter's out, I really do. I think that 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.079 the strongest force that outlives time and outlives death is love. 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.600 She's also become a voice for those who are in 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.240 the depths of their grief, drowning with no life rafts. 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:49.359 Rather than trying to. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.680 Push this feeling away, she's embraced it as a price that. 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.880 She will pay for the cost of love. 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:59.600 I read an article by the American Psychiatric Association a 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.960 few weeks Segau that said, if you're still breathing after 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.720 six months, then you have a disorder. And I was like, 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.680 I have a disorder. And I'm actually very proud of 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.440 this disorder. It's called I still love my son. The 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.360 love is still here. Love is stronger than death. But 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:15.960 I am disordered. 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.679 She continues to shine a light on Hersh's life while 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.960 navigating the enormity of his loss, something she writes about 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.640 with devastating honesty in her new book When We See 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.440 You Again, which is now a New York Times bestseller. 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.360 What I came to understand in our conversation is that 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.440 almost everything Rachel says orbits. 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:34.920 This one idea. 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:39.680 It's something she names explicitly tragic optimism. It's a Victor 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.640 Frankel concept, and it's the idea that you can be 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.320 wounded or disordered, still bleeding and simultaneously committed to love, 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:52.000 to faith and meaning. Hersh's own mantra in captivity was 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.520 borrowed from Frankel. He who has a why can bear 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.960 anyhow So, the question we're circling today, the one at 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.600 the center of today's face, is if love is what 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.920 makes loss unbearable, is it also the thing that makes 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.720 life worth enduring. Today's conversation is in honor of the 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.840 limitless power of a mother's love, a force that reverberates 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.560 for billions of people three hundred and sixty five days 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.880 a year, often quietly, often without recognition, and without condition. 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:21.880 It is endless. 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.359 So to all the women who mother someone or something 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.760 with their whole heart, who have a mother or mother 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.080 figure they love, or who feel the absence of a mother. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.080 This episode is for you. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.240 It's time to question everything with Rachel Goldberg poland. 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:44.000 Rachel. 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.560 Before we get into your book, I really want to 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.600 talk about you. You grew up in Chicago in a 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:54.040 Jewish family, similar to me, and you grew up falling 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.880 in love with your Jewish heritage. You had educational and 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.000 professional experiences that helped you you build that part of 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.159 your identity. And I was so heartened in the book 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.559 to read that that's kind of how you met John. 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.200 I mean, I switched into the same school that he 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.760 was in when I was in eighth grade, he was 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.040 in seventh grade. I'm a little bit of a cougar, 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.359 but that was when we met. We were actually the 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.960 same height when we met, and I'm still that height 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.240 and he's now fourteen inches taller. He's so lucky he 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.839 grew right me. Also because our kids had a fighting chance. 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.200 Did you always want to become a mom? 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.799 I think that when I was growing up in the 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.080 seventies and eighties, I wouldn't have thought anything otherwise, So 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:35.640 definitely it. 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.159 Was something that you always had on your mind. 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.080 I didn't have it on my mind. I just thought 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.480 it was part of growing up. What would happen and. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.960 Then when you had hersh who was your first born, 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:46.400 you decided to stay home with him for a little bit. 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.200 We were living in Berkeley, California at the time, and 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.040 I was teaching in the Jewish day school there and 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.920 John was working as a brand manager at a big 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.120 company out there, and we sort of had that conversation 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.880 of it makes sense that one of us should stay 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.960 home because paying for childcare would have been more than 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.599 what I was making, and so we realized I should 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.360 be the one who stays home. And I really didn't 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.719 have any background with child care, and it was a 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.480 learning curve, as it is for most first time parents. 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.160 But I was also very acutely aware that it was 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.760 a magical time that was fleeting. I mean, we got 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.400 into a rhythm and I really did enjoy it, but 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.640 it was definitely hard. It was challenging, challenging because you 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.159 have a mind that is always going and it was 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.000 hard to be home or in what way, No, I 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.360 think it was just challenging because it was something new 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.400 and it required a tremendous amount of patience. And there 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.880 was never any off time in my experience. You know, 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.080 when I was teaching, I would show up at school 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.480 at eight o'clock and by three o'clock I was done. 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.080 But when you're staying home full time all the time, 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.200 there's very little downtime and there's always something going on 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.279 that you feel like you should be doing. So I 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.920 think that that was sort of a challenge that I 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.360 think is really common with people who are at home 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.400 with children or people who work with children full time. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.240 I remember being at the park once and getting into 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.920 a conversation with someone and they said, Wow, it's the 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.440 hardest job, the job you have, And then all of 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.960 a sudden he said, oh, that's your son. Oh so 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.200 you don't work, And I was like, a second ago, 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.400 that was the hardest job there is, you know, when 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.200 he thought that I was the hairgiver for this child, 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.720 but he didn't understand that I was this child's mother. 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.960 So I think sometimes that's not as appreciated as much 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.360 as it should be, the whole vocation of childcare. 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.640 And then you eventually expanded your family. You had two 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.800 more daughters, Leeby and Orley. Was your life what you 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.160 had imagined at that point. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.679 I felt very much blessed and lucky. We had moved. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.920 At that point, we were living in Richmond, Virginia, and 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:59.520 it was a really lovely, quiet, beautiful, easy life and 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:05.120 I felt extremely kissed by the universe. I had a 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:10.280 very lovely community that we were part of, and I 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.520 was working in adult Jewish education in the community there, 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.600 and John had a job that he liked. And our 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.400 house was very comfortable because it was very affordable in Richmond, Virginia, 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.600 and the kids were great. It was just a very easy, 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.640 busy life. In the book, you call it beige. Yeah, 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.240 I think it's very average. I felt blessed and I 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:33.560 felt normal. 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:34.840 Did you want beige? 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.360 I think I did. I also think you know. I 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.920 grew up my parents are divorced. I was an only 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:44.000 child from their marriage downtown in the city in Chicago, 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.120 which I loved, but it was very different from that 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:53.839 new construct of pretty much suburban lifestyle. I had never 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.000 lived in a single family house until moving to Richmond, 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.240 and having three kids to me felt like a huge family. 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.839 Coming from being an only child and having this very 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.160 I think healthy, normal relationship with John felt like a 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:10.880 real blessing. 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.480 I really appreciate the way you speak about him. The 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.360 word like real partner comes up for me a lot 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:18.720 when you talk about him. 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.200 So much of Hersh's. 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.360 Story has been told through what happened to him, and 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.360 I'd love to know about your son through your words. 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:30.000 How do you describe him? 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.600 Well, I try to be very careful when talking about 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:37.760 Hirsh because I think that in general, especially when there's 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.440 a tragic death of someone young, we tend to mythologize 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:47.080 and lionize and heroicize them, which a dear friend of 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.599 mine who's a writer, Manty Friedman, talks about the heroization 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.120 of young people ends up actually flattening them. It hollows 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:01.080 them because they're defined by sort of their final moments, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.960 and it negates everything that came before. So I try 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:08.000 to be very careful within that framework. 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:09.080 That's so thoughtful. 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.560 Well, I think that I've seen it since October seventh, 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:18.120 twenty twenty three, with every single young person and old 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.679 person by the way, who was lost since then. Somehow 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.560 all of them are heroes, all of them. And I 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.280 think that there's something that at a certain point, you know, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.520 when you start saying a word over and over again 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.440 and then the word doesn't have a meaning anymore. And 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.959 so I'm careful because I do think that every single 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.080 person was a unique person, we have this saying in 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.400 Judaism that every person is a world unto themselves, and 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.480 so everyone was a whole, entire world. That doesn't mean 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.720 that every single person was perfect. And obviously I adore 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.400 hersh He was the person who turned me from a daughter, 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:59.480 a friend, a wife into this new being of mother. 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.400 I think it in many ways change the DNA of 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.319 who I am in the world. Look, he was funny, 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.080 with a dry sense of humor that was sarcastic without 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.640 being mean, which is very hard because usually sarcasm comes 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:17.080 with meanness. But there wasn't meanness. He was very curious, hungry, 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.760 curious in a way that I try to sort of 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:24.920 emulate because he wasn't threatened. He was curious by people 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.360 who work different than he was. And I feel like 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:29.680 I'm not like that. I would like to be more 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.960 like that. I think we generally sort of corner ourselves 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.560 into these echo chambers, especially now, and we hands select 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.640 who we hear our news from, who is in our 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.840 pocket on this screen, who we read, who we interact with. 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.560 And he would say, I want to understand why he 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.960 thinks like he thinks. And I remember even saying to John, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.320 why you know why do you want to hear why 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.640 someone who's espousing opinions that are counter to your worldview? 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.079 But that was really different. And I also think that 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:04.280 he was a radical listener, which is so hard to 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.200 come by. So that's something that I thought was special 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.840 about him. And he had this quiet, gentle respect for 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.760 John and me that I really appreciated. I always appreciated 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.679 while he was alive, and I'm thankful that I recognized it, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.480 because sometimes I think we don't realize what we have 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.640 until we don't have that treasure. And I was very 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.760 aware and John was very aware, So we're thankful that 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:30.400 we were cognizant of that. 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.360 There's something you shared in the book that I just 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.360 loved reading about him. He had this thirst for travel, 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:39.440 and so he was going to go on this two 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.760 year trip around the world, and he had gotten to 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.200 do sort of a mini trip to Europe, and he 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.400 was going to these dance festivals and you said, are 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.440 you sure you want to do this alone? And he said, Mama, 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:52.520 if you go in a clump, you stay in a clump. 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.720 It exemplified so much of what you're sharing. He was 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:56.880 so open to the world. 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:01.319 And what's interesting about that is. That's why the photos 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.200 that we had to use after he was stolen on 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.600 October seventh. We had this problem because we're actually not 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.920 a big photography family. I'm really now impressed with families 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.680 who do that, because we had this big problem needing 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.600 to get his photograph out there, and we didn't have 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.320 any recent photos of him, and so my daughters, who 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.760 of course I know nothing about social media, but they 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.040 started to write to all of these festivals that he 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:29.960 had gone to the summer of twenty twenty three, and 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.720 all of these people who had met him started to 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.160 send us photos and those are the photos that were 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:41.120 used during the struggle to get him home because people 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.120 had met him from all over the world and that 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.600 was really beautiful. And we're still in touch with a 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.480 lot of these people who met him during that nine 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.400 week trip that he took on his own with his 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.800 teeny tiny backpack and two pair of underwear, and he said, Mama, 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.800 don't worry, there are rivers, And I thought, how does 0:13:57.800 --> 0:13:59.959 that justify only taking two pair of underwear? 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:01.480 And what rivers in Europe? 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.360 I mean, he did see actual proof there were rivers, 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.600 or maybe there were more streams or like a little Creek. 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.400 I got to hear you speak in New York at 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:14.040 Temple Bethel, and you were talking there about the importance 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.600 of a name and that we sort of live into 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.640 our names. And so when you say Hirsh's name, what 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:21.800 do you want us to hear? 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.480 First of all, the name Hirsh is actually a Yiddish 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.600 name that means deer, the animal. And after Hirsch was killed, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.560 my daughter Liebi bought me a small little deer that 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.040 I keep on my bedside table and I travel with it. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.280 I have it in my bag here, and I think 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.760 about what qualities does a deer have? Because what you're 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.560 referring to is that in the Jewish tradition, we actually 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.840 believe that parents are divinely inspired once in their lives, 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.400 and it's the moment they give their children their names. 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.000 And that's why sometimes we know stories where people say 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.120 I was going to name him Solomon, and then all 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.280 of a sudden when the rabbi said, and his name is, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.880 and they said David. And we believe it's entwined with 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.800 what your path will unfold to be. And so I 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:14.400 think about how a deer is a gentle animal, that 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:19.480 it's life and very sort of unassuming. It doesn't need 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:23.120 all the bells and whistles. It's a modest animal. And 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.440 I think that there are echoes of Hirsh in that, 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.280 and I think of Deer as being very innocent. 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.080 I had only gotten to know Hersh through the photos 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.520 you shared and his room that you shared, and I 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.160 loved reading about more of who he was in the book. 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.240 He sounded like a really beautiful soul. Can you bring 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.400 me back to the moment when your beige life ended, 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.640 because you mark this striation in the book between the 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:03.720 before and the after. 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.160 So when did your beij life end? 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.120 So it was very quick and it was on the 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.480 morning of October seventh. It really sort of starts the 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.600 night before because on the evening of Friday, October sixth, 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.160 Hirsh and my daughters and John and I all walked 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.479 to synagogue together or a family that goes to synagogue 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.480 both Friday night and Shabbat Saturday morning. And Hirsh had 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.240 said to us, after we go to synagogue and we 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.080 were going to friends for Shabbat dinner, he said, on 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.520 n aaire and I are going to go do something fun. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.600 Anare Shapira was Hirsh's best friend. They were actually a trio. 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:44.360 There was Hersh and Yanni and an Air, and so 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.960 Hirsh had brought his camping backpack with us to synagogue 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.520 and to our friends for Shabbat dinner. He had been 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.560 regaling us at dinner, all the friends sitting at the 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.280 table with tales from being in Europe at these trance 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.920 music festivals. And at eleven o'clock he kissed me right here. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.240 He leaned over my right side and he kissed John. 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.600 And he turned around in the doorway and looked at 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:09.879 me and said, love you, see you tomorrow. I was 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.359 very casual, and he left. And the next morning, John 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.200 left for synagogue at seven thirty, which is quite early, 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.320 and so the girls were still asleep, and I was 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:21.080 going to wake them in a little bit and we 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.400 were going to meet him at synagogue. I was still 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.320 having a cup of tea, and all of a sudden, 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.480 around eight o'clock, there were bomb sirens that started to 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:34.200 go off in Jerusalem, which tragically now is extremely normal, 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.800 but then it was completely out of the ordinary. And 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.520 so I ran to wake up my girls because I 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.800 knew there must be bombs falling somewhere. And we got 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.040 into our safe room Israel since the mid nineties, any 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:52.560 construction requires that residences have a safe room, a bomb 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.320 shelter in the house. And so the girls and I 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.760 went into our safe room, which ironically is Hersh's bedroom, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:01.399 and I sealed the window. It has like a steal 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:05.119 enforced door, and I sealed the door. And the protocol 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.880 is that you wait ten minutes and if you don't 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.199 hear anything suspicious, then you can come out. Now. I 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.119 don't use technology on Shabbat, so it was Saturday morning. 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.400 I didn't have a phone, TV, radio, computer, I didn't 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.720 have anything open to know what was happening, why these 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.920 sirens were going off. I waited ten minutes. I didn't 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:29.120 hear anything suspicious, so I said, girls, we can come out. 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:31.680 But I know that Hersh and on Air are somewhere 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.399 outside sleeping. It's an emergency. I'm turning on my phone 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.399 to make sure the boys are okay. I turned on 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:38.960 my phone. I want to say maybe it was eight 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.840 twenty three. I have it written down, and eleven minutes earlier, 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:46.399 two consecutive WhatsApp messages had come into the group that Hirsh, 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.800 John and I have just the three of us from hirsh. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:51.760 The first one said I love you, and the second 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.640 one said I'm sorry, and I immediately tried to call 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.119 him and it rang and rang, and then I wrote, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.840 are you okay? Let me know you're okay. I'm leaving 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.359 my phone on let me know you're okay. Those still 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:07.840 to this day don't have the two blue checks that 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.680 showed that they were read, obviously, and I knew immediately 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.760 that we were in trouble. John came running in because 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.119 they had closed the synagogue because of all these bomb 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.680 sirens that kept going off. I handed him my phone. 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:21.719 I said, we're in trouble, and that was it. We 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:28.040 sort of stepped through this very large wooden frame of 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.200 the lives that we had lived up until that point. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.399 I say, you know, I was born in October of 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:40.200 nineteen sixty nine, and everything from that date until October seventh, 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.800 twenty twenty three was now over, completely over, and I 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.280 was now in a different place. And I've been in 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.880 varying hues of different places since then, but that life 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.400 of the before is completely over. You and your husband John, 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.960 and specifically you became very vocal. How did you choose 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.760 to bring into action and be vocal? Versus wanting to 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.680 wait and see how things go. What was your decision 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:11.480 making process? Well, initially, the families of the two hundred 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.960 and fifty one hostages who were stolen on October seventh, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:22.440 everyone went into primal reflexive action, meaning whatever felt authentic 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:24.960 in that moment to do is what people were doing. 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.200 There was not a lot of thought. There wasn't sort 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:31.520 of let's sit and brainstorm and make a collective plan. 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.960 We were all instantly traumatized. Everybody had footage of their 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.320 people being tortured, their people being killed. People had footage 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:43.120 of their children being killed and their dead bodies being 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.280 dragged away. We had footage of Hirsh being loaded onto 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.960 a pickup truck with his dominant left arm blown off. 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.120 We could see his jagged bone sticking out below his elbow. 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.159 He had tied sort of a tourniquet with a T 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.120 shirt or something around the upper part of his arm. 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.399 These are things that you are never prepared to see. 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.880 No parent or loved one wants to see anything like that, 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:15.879 and you're not rational, and instantly we were all in 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.159 action mode. But everybody responds differently. I have a very 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.600 good friend who's a nurse, and she said, you know 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:23.960 when people are in pain in the hospital, she said, 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.000 there are the people who are clenchers. There are people 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.359 who are screamers, the people who hit her when she 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.000 tries to help them, they're people who are stoic. I 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:35.840 saw that in the hostage family cohort that everyone responded differently. 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:41.320 And once we knew he was alive, because a girl 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.600 who was in the bomb shelter with him, who he 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.760 didn't know before that the Nova festival, she was rightfully 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.480 having a complete panic attack and he was trying to 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.480 calm her down, and he put her head in his lap, 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:58.480 and he put his head on top of her, sort 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.680 of protecting himself, and her head was in his lap. 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:04.840 And she is the one who ended up telling us, 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.359 I watched him walk out. He's alive. She said, I 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.800 watched him walk out with or Levy, Elia Cohen and 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.720 Alon Ohel, those four boys walked out. As soon as 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.240 we knew that, we wanted the world to know that, 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:22.920 and we wanted the people who took him to know 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.359 we know you have him, we know he's alive. And 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.720 we had been told by everyone it's important that they 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:34.320 know that he's American, he's a civilian and that the 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.159 world is watching. I would love to say, oh, it 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.000 was this very grand plan. I felt like I had 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:43.480 a branding iron on my back. I was doing everything 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:49.040 under severe intense mental, psychological, spiritual, religious, emotional torture. 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:51.600 You talk in the book about what the torture did 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:54.399 to your body. You said you never got your period again. 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:58.440 How were you surviving? Every day at this point. 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:01.159 While he was still alive, John and I were working 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.960 eighteen to twenty hours a day, running all over the world, 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.199 talking to whoever we could talk to, meeting with whoever 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:11.399 we could meet with, and trying desperately to move the 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:14.800 needle on this horrific situation that so many people were 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:18.920 suffering from. And definitely every morning when I would open 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.560 my eyes, there would be a moment where I would 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:26.840 feel overwhelmed with angst and misery. And I was used 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:30.800 to saying the line that many Jewish people say upon waking, 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:33.479 which I always say since I was a girl and 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:37.119 learned it, and it's a line that says, I am 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.160 grateful to creator of the universe for giving me back 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.879 my soul. You have tremendous faith in me, which I 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:47.040 love because normally I think the dynamic that we learn 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:49.480 is that we're supposed to have faith in God, and 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.720 yet the very first thing we're supposed to say is, wow, 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:55.760 I'm back today. You have faith in me. I'm not done. 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.359 My soul's back. So I would say that line, and 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:02.240 then I would say, hope is mandatory. It's not a suggestion, 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:06.520 it's not advice, it's mandatory. Go, and I would fling 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:09.399 the covers off, and I would say, pretend to be 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:13.040 a human. Just pretend you don't have to really be human. 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:15.600 You have to pretend to be a human. Because I 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.520 wanted to lie on the floor in the fetal position weeping, 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:21.479 but I knew that he was in agony somewhere and 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:25.600 that wasn't going to help, and so we really pushed ourselves. 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:29.560 You know, we were exhausted and miserable and truly tormented. 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:32.200 I mean, I've aged so much in the last two 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:34.840 and a half years, as has John. As you mentioned. 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:36.719 I say it in the book like I'm very honest 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:39.080 about it. I mean, my body died, I never got 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:42.000 my period again. I've never colored my hair, so I 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:44.359 had gray in my hair before, but I have a 0:24:44.400 --> 0:24:45.960 ton of gray in my hair and you know, I've 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:48.480 never worn makeup again. I've never worn jewelry again. Like 0:24:48.560 --> 0:24:53.399 I'm very much a wounded, damaged person, I'm very much 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:57.240 a disordered person. But I think that it makes sense 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:00.760 given what we went through and then and you know, 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:10.280 that was three hundred and thirty days of immense, exhausting beseeching, begging, scraping, pleading, running, burning, 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:13.480 and then the angels of death came to our door 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:17.240 to tell us that hersh had been murdered. So you 0:25:17.280 --> 0:25:21.800 know that was going through yet another big frame into 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:24.000 this other very unknown place. 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:26.879 When you saw him and you saw that video of 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:29.320 him being loaded onto the back of a truck and 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:32.000 his arm had been blown off by a grenade. I 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:34.520 know you were so happy that he was alive and 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:37.600 to know that, But what was it like to see 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:41.080 your son that you had cooked in your belly with 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:41.720 no arm? 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:47.560 It was shocking and confusing. And I only watched it once. 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:52.159 John actually watched it many times because he derived a 0:25:52.200 --> 0:25:55.480 lot of strength from it. He said, he's walking on 0:25:55.480 --> 0:25:58.359 his own two feet, no one was dragging him. He 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:01.800 uses his non dominant arm to get himself up into 0:26:01.840 --> 0:26:05.760 the pickup truck. The other young men were lying down. 0:26:05.800 --> 0:26:09.720 They were very badly wounded. He was obviously very badly wounded. 0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:12.560 He was also burned, and yet he was sitting up. 0:26:12.680 --> 0:26:14.960 He chose to sit up, and he puts his head 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:17.160 down in a crook of what's left of his arm. 0:26:17.400 --> 0:26:21.240 John derived a lot of strength from that. And interestingly, 0:26:21.320 --> 0:26:23.960 there is a continuation of that video that I only 0:26:24.000 --> 0:26:26.720 saw once, and it was after he was killed. On 0:26:26.760 --> 0:26:32.600 the ride to Gaza. One of the gunmen who had 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:35.520 stolen him grabs him by the head. He is his 0:26:35.600 --> 0:26:37.960 head down, He's lost a lot of blood, so he 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:41.399 was probably very lightheaded. Grabs him by the hair and 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:44.720 pulls him up and says into the camera, take a 0:26:44.760 --> 0:26:47.679 selfie with me. And what I love about that moment, 0:26:47.760 --> 0:26:50.680 and I've only seen it once, is Hirsh looks right 0:26:50.720 --> 0:26:54.720 into the camera defiant. Yeah, I love it. Even though 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:59.119 I was horrific. He was obviously in complete shock and 0:26:59.160 --> 0:27:02.440 horror and trot. He had just witnessed eighteen young people 0:27:02.520 --> 0:27:05.879 get murdered in a five foot by eight foot tiny shelter. 0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:09.960 I mean, picture your bathroom with twenty six people smashed in, 0:27:10.280 --> 0:27:12.960 including an air who had been standing in the door 0:27:13.200 --> 0:27:16.520 trying so hard to save these people, throwing out grenade 0:27:16.520 --> 0:27:19.600 after grenade as they were coming in, and finally they 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:23.439 killed him, and Herst saw that. And we also know 0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:26.160 that those two hecks that we got from him were 0:27:26.240 --> 0:27:29.879 after his hand was blown off, and so he thought 0:27:29.920 --> 0:27:32.800 he was dying. And I think about that was how 0:27:32.840 --> 0:27:36.560 he chose to say goodbye. That a lot of parents 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:42.760 tragically had recordings of their children screaming. I mean, imagine 0:27:42.800 --> 0:27:47.280 how the structure of your being in this world changes 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:51.800 when you hear your children screaming as they're dying, and 0:27:51.800 --> 0:27:54.359 that's the last thing you hear. He chose not to 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:58.280 record to us. He just said I love you, I'm sorry, 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:00.760 because he knew we were going to be in terrible pain. 0:28:00.960 --> 0:28:02.320 I was just going to ask you, what do you 0:28:02.320 --> 0:28:04.959 think that I'm sorry? Was he knew we would suffer 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:09.159 terribly and he's right. And interestingly, I know this jumping ahead, 0:28:09.200 --> 0:28:11.840 but someone pointed out to me and I didn't realize 0:28:11.880 --> 0:28:14.000 I had done this, but they played it for me 0:28:14.480 --> 0:28:17.120 that at Hirsh's funeral when they were putting him into 0:28:17.160 --> 0:28:20.560 the ground. And you know in Israel, when they bury people, 0:28:21.119 --> 0:28:23.840 we don't use coffins, so he was just wrapped in 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:26.120 a shroud which is like a sheet, and you could 0:28:26.119 --> 0:28:29.520 really see the contour of him, and as they were 0:28:29.520 --> 0:28:32.440 putting him into the ground, his body, I went like 0:28:32.560 --> 0:28:35.600 this and I screamed, I'm sorry. I don't remember doing that. 0:28:35.800 --> 0:28:38.800 But someone said, there's a symbiosis. That was the last 0:28:38.840 --> 0:28:40.479 thing he said to you, And that's the last thing 0:28:40.520 --> 0:28:43.160 you said to him. So amazed by you. 0:28:43.160 --> 0:28:45.320 You never cry and interviews it's so rare. 0:28:45.600 --> 0:28:48.040 Well, I think it's actually really sad because it just 0:28:48.080 --> 0:28:51.080 shows how broken I am. Like it's a very human, 0:28:51.640 --> 0:28:55.960 healthy response, but I also think that I've cried so much. 0:28:56.400 --> 0:28:58.480 You know, I'm not all here. Part of me is 0:28:58.520 --> 0:29:01.320 already in the world to come with her, and so 0:29:01.440 --> 0:29:04.200 I'm not normal. And I referred to it earlier that 0:29:04.360 --> 0:29:08.760 I read an article by the American Psychiatric Association a 0:29:08.760 --> 0:29:12.080 few weeks ago that said, if you're still grieving after 0:29:12.240 --> 0:29:15.080 six months, then you have a disorder. And I was like, 0:29:15.440 --> 0:29:18.280 I have a disorder, and I'm actually very proud of 0:29:18.320 --> 0:29:21.360 this disorder. It's called I still love my son. The 0:29:21.440 --> 0:29:24.640 love is still here. Love is stronger than death. But 0:29:24.840 --> 0:29:28.200 I am disordered. I mean, I think of in Chicago, 0:29:28.320 --> 0:29:30.800 growing up they were always those parking meters. I don't 0:29:30.840 --> 0:29:33.160 know if they have them here in LA, but they 0:29:33.160 --> 0:29:35.960 were always broken, and so my mom would always leave 0:29:36.000 --> 0:29:39.560 a note on the parking meter saying the meter is broken, 0:29:39.600 --> 0:29:42.200 don't give me a ticket. And I feel like the 0:29:42.240 --> 0:29:44.800 meter was disordered, like it was out of order. And 0:29:44.920 --> 0:29:48.600 I feel like that, like I am broken, don't give 0:29:48.600 --> 0:29:52.400 me a ticket. And dis in Latin means the opposite 0:29:52.440 --> 0:29:55.480 of So I'm the opposite of order. I mean, it's 0:29:55.520 --> 0:29:57.880 not that I'm unique, because there are millions of people 0:29:57.880 --> 0:30:01.080 who have buried their children, but that us feel the 0:30:01.160 --> 0:30:14.880 opposite of the order that I would have preferred. 0:30:15.280 --> 0:30:18.760 I've watched, i think, almost every interview you've done, and 0:30:19.480 --> 0:30:22.800 no matter how long a journalist has been doing their job, 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:26.520 Anderson Cooper, Beyonna, no one can get through an interview 0:30:26.560 --> 0:30:31.360 without crying. And I'm really wondering how you feel watching 0:30:31.440 --> 0:30:36.280 other people in pain over pain that only you can 0:30:36.360 --> 0:30:37.240 really understand. 0:30:37.640 --> 0:30:41.400 I actually really think it's a beautiful human response. I 0:30:41.440 --> 0:30:44.560 think people really grew to love Hirsh and love a 0:30:44.560 --> 0:30:46.440 lot of people. We love a lot of people that 0:30:46.480 --> 0:30:52.400 we've never met. And during the really shocking, sticky, tricky days, 0:30:53.120 --> 0:30:55.800 that we were trying so desperately to save Hirsh and 0:30:55.840 --> 0:30:58.840 these other hostages. The world grew to love a lot 0:30:58.880 --> 0:31:02.160 of those hostages without ever having known them. And forty 0:31:02.200 --> 0:31:05.560 six of those hostages who were taken alive were killed 0:31:05.600 --> 0:31:08.080 in captivity, and there are people all over the world 0:31:08.160 --> 0:31:11.680 who grieved for them and continue to grieve for them 0:31:11.720 --> 0:31:14.560 because they grew to love them. And I think that 0:31:14.640 --> 0:31:19.200 there's something really powerful and uniting about that that you 0:31:19.280 --> 0:31:21.520 can love people that you never met, and you can 0:31:21.600 --> 0:31:25.160 grieve people you never met. So when I've had these 0:31:25.240 --> 0:31:34.120 experiences speaking to people and they have the right human, empathetic, kind, merciful, compassionate, 0:31:34.360 --> 0:31:39.080 graceful response, I think it's the most beautiful personification of 0:31:39.120 --> 0:31:40.200 the human experience. 0:31:40.760 --> 0:31:43.920 You started wearing a piece of tape every day that 0:31:44.000 --> 0:31:46.400 Hirsh was gone. It was three hundred and thirty days, 0:31:47.000 --> 0:31:49.719 and what began as a marker became something that the 0:31:49.760 --> 0:31:51.720 world really came to recognize. 0:31:51.760 --> 0:31:53.800 Do you remember the first day that you put it on. 0:31:54.200 --> 0:31:57.480 I put it on the first day on day twenty six, 0:31:58.280 --> 0:32:02.960 and it was because it was driving me to insanity 0:32:03.640 --> 0:32:08.400 that we were doing ten to fifteen media clips a 0:32:08.520 --> 0:32:12.080 day because we speak English, so we became very much 0:32:12.280 --> 0:32:14.840 sort of an easy go to. There were plenty of 0:32:15.000 --> 0:32:17.960 families that were speaking many different languages, because you know, 0:32:18.000 --> 0:32:22.280 the original cohort was from more than thirty different nationalities. 0:32:22.400 --> 0:32:26.440 There were Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, so there 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:28.960 were people speaking all over the world in all different languages. 0:32:29.000 --> 0:32:32.120 But because we were English speakers, we were speaking a 0:32:32.160 --> 0:32:35.600 lot to the international English speaking media. And the first 0:32:35.640 --> 0:32:38.400 question was always how many days has it been since 0:32:38.440 --> 0:32:41.160 you've spoken to your son? And I just thought, I 0:32:41.200 --> 0:32:44.720 can't take this anymore. I remembered being a little girl 0:32:45.040 --> 0:32:48.440 in Chicago one night wandering out of bed. I couldn't sleep, 0:32:48.520 --> 0:32:51.120 and I wandered into our living room and my dad 0:32:51.200 --> 0:32:54.840 was watching the news and it was ABC News and 0:32:54.880 --> 0:32:57.920 there was a show called Nightline and there was a man, 0:32:58.160 --> 0:33:01.720 an anchor named Ted kopp Both who had this big 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:06.280 head of gingy red hair, and he had behind him numbers. 0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:08.840 And I said to my dad, what is that number? 0:33:08.880 --> 0:33:12.080 And he said, that's the amount of days that hostages 0:33:12.120 --> 0:33:15.320 have been held in Iran. And he explained to me, 0:33:15.560 --> 0:33:18.120 and I was nine years old as a little girl, 0:33:18.320 --> 0:33:20.160 and he explained me because I didn't know what a 0:33:20.160 --> 0:33:23.360 hostage was, and I didn't understand what had happened. And 0:33:23.440 --> 0:33:25.760 I thought back to that, and I thought, I'm going 0:33:25.840 --> 0:33:29.960 to be the human nightline Ted Copple counter and I 0:33:30.040 --> 0:33:32.760 went and got tape. And I also thought there was 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:36.120 something very accountable. Everyone had to do what felt good 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:37.880 to them. You know, some people wore a necklace, some 0:33:37.920 --> 0:33:41.360 people wore a bracelet, some people wore a ribbon. Everybody 0:33:41.360 --> 0:33:44.200 did what spoke to them. To me, it was very 0:33:44.240 --> 0:33:47.880 important to show the failure of another day. That the 0:33:47.960 --> 0:33:51.920 number changed every day, that my prison number changed every 0:33:51.960 --> 0:33:56.120 day I was in prison. And I remember on day 0:33:56.200 --> 0:33:59.280 eighty eight, which I talked about in the book, that 0:33:59.440 --> 0:34:02.000 I was speaking to a group of college students and 0:34:02.040 --> 0:34:04.440 a young man raised his hand and it was the 0:34:04.480 --> 0:34:09.839 most gorgeous question, but it broke me. He said, what 0:34:09.880 --> 0:34:12.319 can we do to ease your pain? And no one 0:34:12.360 --> 0:34:15.520 had asked me that in eighty eight days? And I 0:34:15.600 --> 0:34:17.960 started crying, and I put my hand on the number, 0:34:17.960 --> 0:34:21.680 and I said, it sounds so naive now thinking back, 0:34:21.920 --> 0:34:25.560 I said, if God forbid we get to day one hundred, 0:34:25.600 --> 0:34:27.759 please don't make me be the only person on earth 0:34:27.800 --> 0:34:31.600 wearing this tape. And by the afternoon, the woman who 0:34:31.719 --> 0:34:34.960 had organized that trip sent me a picture on WhatsApp 0:34:35.560 --> 0:34:39.160 of the one hundred students on that trip after lunch. 0:34:39.239 --> 0:34:41.880 They were all wearing eighty eight. They had started on 0:34:41.960 --> 0:34:45.000 that day, and we had on day one hundred over 0:34:45.080 --> 0:34:49.719 a million people sending us pictures selfies of them, and 0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:52.920 they had started wearing the tape and starting on day 0:34:52.920 --> 0:34:55.920 one hundred around the world. And you know, this crossed 0:34:56.440 --> 0:35:00.399 all barriers. It was people of all different backgrounds, all 0:35:00.400 --> 0:35:04.960 different belief systems, all different brands and textures and colors 0:35:05.000 --> 0:35:11.080 and faith and philosophies, and everyone was just trying to 0:35:11.200 --> 0:35:16.440 come together in this painful, out of the ordinary situation 0:35:16.840 --> 0:35:19.719 by doing something symbolic of saying we are with you, 0:35:19.880 --> 0:35:23.440 and the days are moving. We were trying so desperately hard, 0:35:24.280 --> 0:35:27.680 and we continued wearing that tape. We buried hersh on 0:35:27.760 --> 0:35:30.359 day three thirty two, and you can see pictures of us, 0:35:30.400 --> 0:35:33.720 you know, standing there bearing him and we're wearing the number. 0:35:33.719 --> 0:35:37.279 And we kept wearing the number until day eight forty three, 0:35:37.320 --> 0:35:41.160 when the final hostage was returned back so his family 0:35:41.200 --> 0:35:43.000 could bury him. You say, on. 0:35:43.160 --> 0:35:46.919 Day eighty eight that student asked you how they could 0:35:46.920 --> 0:35:51.760 ease your pain, and I can imagine that the outpouring 0:35:52.040 --> 0:35:55.640 of support from people near and far must have been 0:35:56.480 --> 0:35:59.680 helpful and overwhelming in just a mix of feelings. Did 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:03.839 you feel supported by people? Were you frustrated by what 0:36:03.880 --> 0:36:06.120 people were saying to you? Could you even deal with 0:36:06.160 --> 0:36:07.480 somebody else's feelings? 0:36:07.760 --> 0:36:10.640 I was very grateful. I think all of us, all 0:36:10.719 --> 0:36:14.880 of the families, were tremendously grateful at the outpouring of 0:36:15.320 --> 0:36:18.600 really kind, manevolent people saying what in the world can 0:36:18.600 --> 0:36:22.279 we do? We really want to help. I personally had 0:36:22.280 --> 0:36:25.400 a problem which I still do to this day, and 0:36:25.440 --> 0:36:28.239 I admit that it's my problem. I actually remember when 0:36:28.280 --> 0:36:30.239 I was in high school and my mom said, now, 0:36:30.239 --> 0:36:32.120 if you ever break up with someone, you always have 0:36:32.200 --> 0:36:34.560 to say it's not you, it's me. She said, it 0:36:34.600 --> 0:36:37.040 will be them, but you can't say that because it 0:36:37.040 --> 0:36:39.720 will hurt them. But I am telling you this problem, 0:36:39.800 --> 0:36:43.080 it really is me, which is people would say to me, 0:36:43.200 --> 0:36:46.960 how are you? And to this day it's the most excruciating, 0:36:47.120 --> 0:36:52.600 confusing question that I get. Because when Hirsh was being held, 0:36:52.920 --> 0:36:54.960 I felt like my leg was in one of those 0:36:54.960 --> 0:36:58.520 old fashioned like bear traps, like these teeth were chopping 0:36:58.600 --> 0:37:02.560 into my skin and tearing my tendons. And for someone 0:37:02.560 --> 0:37:05.680 to say how are you, I felt was like cruel 0:37:05.840 --> 0:37:09.440 and perverse, but really they meant it in a very innocuous, 0:37:09.719 --> 0:37:13.560 even kind hearted way. I didn't know how to answer, 0:37:13.640 --> 0:37:16.400 and I still don't know how to answer. I say, 0:37:16.600 --> 0:37:19.319 do you not see that there's a knife sticking out 0:37:19.360 --> 0:37:21.960 of my heart right now? I mean, how can you 0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:25.760 ask me how I am? It's like walking by someone 0:37:25.800 --> 0:37:27.880 in the middle of being raped and saying how are you? 0:37:28.440 --> 0:37:31.840 Like it just seems so perverse, and yet people don't 0:37:31.880 --> 0:37:35.520 see it. It's not their fault. And I said, someone asked, 0:37:35.760 --> 0:37:38.240 what does this book do? And I said, I think 0:37:38.400 --> 0:37:42.200 I'm trying really hard to show you this knife. Like 0:37:42.440 --> 0:37:44.480 how do you explain to someone who's been blind their 0:37:44.520 --> 0:37:48.399 whole life what blue is? It's very difficult, but I'm 0:37:48.440 --> 0:37:51.239 trying to show you blue. I'm trying to show you 0:37:51.320 --> 0:37:55.000 this pain. And I do have to figure out how 0:37:55.040 --> 0:37:58.640 do I answer that question. Recently, I was talking to 0:37:58.680 --> 0:38:02.160 a journalist who said how are you? And so I thought, okay, 0:38:02.160 --> 0:38:04.799 I'll tell the truth. I said, I'm suffering, and he 0:38:04.880 --> 0:38:08.200 went huhuh, no, really, how are you? And I said, 0:38:08.400 --> 0:38:11.080 I'm really suffering. So then we hated each other and 0:38:11.120 --> 0:38:14.280 we had to start, you know, this conversation. But I thought, 0:38:14.320 --> 0:38:18.080 when you're asking someone in grief, mourning loss and suffering 0:38:18.120 --> 0:38:20.680 how they are, you're putting them in a situation where 0:38:20.760 --> 0:38:23.560 either they tell you the truth and then you feel terrible, 0:38:24.000 --> 0:38:27.120 or you're making them lie and they have to say, oh, okay, 0:38:27.239 --> 0:38:30.400 I'm getting there. I'm you know, one day at a time, 0:38:30.719 --> 0:38:34.480 or you know, trying to breathe or whatever. Again, this 0:38:34.640 --> 0:38:38.239 is part of my problem because I know another mother 0:38:38.360 --> 0:38:42.200 who lost her daughter since October seventh, and she told 0:38:42.280 --> 0:38:45.239 me that when she goes to the grocery store, if 0:38:45.280 --> 0:38:48.759 people don't ask her how she is, it hurts her. So, 0:38:49.080 --> 0:38:53.120 you know, it's a really tough tightrope for kind, caring, 0:38:53.560 --> 0:38:55.280 sensitive people to try to walk. 0:38:55.600 --> 0:38:57.879 I want to ask you about how you wrote the book, 0:38:57.920 --> 0:39:01.719 because you mentioned that you were writing it in the pain, 0:39:02.040 --> 0:39:05.200 and the way you wrote it showcase that to me, 0:39:05.960 --> 0:39:08.919 there are a lot of moments of these staccato sentences 0:39:09.040 --> 0:39:13.120 and space. I almost felt your breath sometimes in that space. 0:39:13.560 --> 0:39:16.600 Why write the book in such dire pain? 0:39:17.239 --> 0:39:20.759 I think it was very much honestly self serving. I 0:39:20.880 --> 0:39:26.719 was choking. I was drowning, in suffering, in severe thorny molasses, 0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:30.759 thic suffering, and I was choking like I felt like 0:39:31.040 --> 0:39:34.640 I was barely alive. And John said to me, you 0:39:34.760 --> 0:39:36.840 mean to get this out. I mean I was literally 0:39:37.000 --> 0:39:39.839 like my throat felt closed. And so I think in 0:39:39.880 --> 0:39:43.239 a way it was giving the Heimlich to myself. And 0:39:43.280 --> 0:39:45.279 I'm very honest about it in the book. You know, 0:39:45.360 --> 0:39:49.240 I said in the beginning, I am still underneath this truck, 0:39:49.320 --> 0:39:51.759 like I've managed to get one arm out, and I'm 0:39:51.840 --> 0:39:55.800 typing with one finger hunt and peck. I have no perspective, 0:39:56.080 --> 0:39:59.799 I have no panoramic distance from this trauma, from this 0:40:00.560 --> 0:40:03.399 I know there are people who wait and then they're 0:40:03.440 --> 0:40:06.839 able to sort of collect their thoughts and really give 0:40:07.000 --> 0:40:12.400 a real sort of comprehensive and smooth explanation of what 0:40:12.600 --> 0:40:16.600 they're grappling with. I didn't have the time or the 0:40:16.640 --> 0:40:19.600 privilege of the time of that, because I was drowning. 0:40:20.120 --> 0:40:23.400 And so that's why I'm also careful. You know, this 0:40:23.560 --> 0:40:27.120 is not a memoir, this is not a tell all, 0:40:27.600 --> 0:40:30.360 this is not he did this. And she said that 0:40:31.040 --> 0:40:34.760 this is not. I was down here and beaten down 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:37.239 and now I'm up here. You know, this is the 0:40:37.400 --> 0:40:40.839 road to recovery and resilience, none of that. I wish 0:40:40.960 --> 0:40:43.000 it's not what it is. I think it's what a 0:40:43.000 --> 0:40:46.080 lot of people want it to be, because people want 0:40:46.120 --> 0:40:49.520 all of us who are broken to be better. And 0:40:49.560 --> 0:40:53.640 that idea, I think is so complicated because again it 0:40:53.719 --> 0:40:57.040 comes from such a good nugget of a place. And 0:40:57.120 --> 0:40:59.400 yet I was speaking to this young woman who was 0:40:59.440 --> 0:41:03.160 explaining to me, Oh, that kind of rhetoric of you know, 0:41:03.200 --> 0:41:06.160 you'll get there and you're going to be better, This 0:41:06.360 --> 0:41:12.720 forced betterness, this forced language of resilience is actually toxic positivity. 0:41:12.840 --> 0:41:15.319 I was like, oh, my gosh, you're a genius, and 0:41:15.360 --> 0:41:17.680 she said, no, no, it's an actual term. I didn't 0:41:17.719 --> 0:41:20.040 come up with it, but I had never heard it before. 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:21.719 So I put it on to her and think she's 0:41:21.760 --> 0:41:25.760 a genius. And then I walked home obsessed with this idea, 0:41:26.360 --> 0:41:28.440 which I think we do a lot because we're so 0:41:28.640 --> 0:41:32.520 scared of pain in Western civilization, in our culture, so 0:41:32.680 --> 0:41:37.120 afraid of pain that you know, it's blocked out. This 0:41:37.160 --> 0:41:39.799 is probably part of the opioid crisis, is like we 0:41:39.920 --> 0:41:44.239 don't want to feel anything bad, and I think it's 0:41:44.280 --> 0:41:48.759 actually emotionally barbaric. It's emotionally gaslighting to people who are 0:41:48.760 --> 0:41:51.640 really in pain. And I'm not just talking about people 0:41:51.640 --> 0:41:55.279 who've buried people core to their identity and existence. I'm 0:41:55.320 --> 0:41:57.960 talking about people who all of us are carrying something 0:41:58.000 --> 0:42:01.160 that's very painful. That's part of the human enterprise, that's 0:42:01.160 --> 0:42:03.880 what happens to us. So I went home and I 0:42:04.000 --> 0:42:08.239 googled what is the antidote? What is the opposite of 0:42:08.320 --> 0:42:14.239 toxic positivity? And I find this term that's called tragic optimism, 0:42:14.480 --> 0:42:17.879 and I was like, oh my gosh, beauty, I love it. 0:42:18.000 --> 0:42:21.520 That's me because I am an optimist, but I am 0:42:21.680 --> 0:42:25.440 enrobed in tragedy and I'm okay with that. And then, 0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:27.600 of course you may have heard me talk about this, 0:42:27.680 --> 0:42:31.520 but I said, who came up with that, right, because like, wow, 0:42:31.600 --> 0:42:34.680 that's my new identity. Who coined that term? And it 0:42:34.760 --> 0:42:38.480 was Victor Frankel, who you know, I love well hersh 0:42:38.760 --> 0:42:42.319 loved Victor Frankel too. While he was in captivity, he 0:42:42.400 --> 0:42:45.200 would say he who has a y can bear anyhow, 0:42:45.440 --> 0:42:48.560 which is a line from Victor Frankel's book Man search 0:42:48.640 --> 0:42:52.480 for meaning. You learned from another hostage, or who had 0:42:52.480 --> 0:42:55.759 three days with hersh in captivity, what his spirits were like, 0:42:56.560 --> 0:43:02.040 and or said that he was laughing at some points 0:43:02.320 --> 0:43:06.400 and really emboldening people with Victor Frankel's line. 0:43:06.600 --> 0:43:08.040 Did you feel a sense of pride? 0:43:08.440 --> 0:43:11.400 I did, and I also felt a sense of comfort 0:43:11.640 --> 0:43:14.720 and consolation, knowing first of all that he wasn't broken. 0:43:14.840 --> 0:43:17.759 My assumption was that he was broken. You know, I'm 0:43:17.800 --> 0:43:21.920 his mother. I see this horrible video. I know from 0:43:22.280 --> 0:43:25.400 intelligence sources they were telling us that they were starving, 0:43:25.680 --> 0:43:28.759 they were being tortured, any little bits of information that 0:43:28.800 --> 0:43:30.640 we were getting, which was not very much, and it 0:43:30.680 --> 0:43:34.200 was months apart. So my assumption was that he was broken. 0:43:34.320 --> 0:43:36.840 I knew he had this horrible injury. And then to 0:43:36.920 --> 0:43:40.840 hear from or Levy, whose name means light, to hear 0:43:40.960 --> 0:43:45.160 that Kirsch made him laugh. Herst shared his mantra from 0:43:45.320 --> 0:43:48.440 Victor Frankel, which is actually a riff on something Frederick 0:43:48.560 --> 0:43:53.040 Mietsche originally said, and then having Eli Shaarabi also talk 0:43:53.120 --> 0:43:57.440 about her sharing that mantra as well with him. It 0:43:57.480 --> 0:44:00.920 gave me back a little piece of another piece of 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:01.919 being here in this. 0:44:01.880 --> 0:44:17.399 World, something that stood out to me and so many 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:20.920 people watching you as you went through the three hundred 0:44:20.960 --> 0:44:23.920 and thirty days, is that you were able to carry 0:44:24.200 --> 0:44:27.680 multiple truths at one time. You would cry out for 0:44:27.920 --> 0:44:31.880 the pain that you were feeling, your pain for wanting 0:44:31.880 --> 0:44:34.680 to get Hirsh home, and you would also cry out 0:44:34.719 --> 0:44:37.400 for the pain that the mothers in Gaza were feeling. 0:44:38.239 --> 0:44:41.840 And it was particularly striking, not. 0:44:41.800 --> 0:44:44.920 Just because I think that was so hard for anybody 0:44:44.960 --> 0:44:47.800 to do in that moment, but you had a son 0:44:47.920 --> 0:44:51.080 in Gaza being held captive. Why was it important for 0:44:51.200 --> 0:44:54.919 you to speak that way consistently. 0:44:55.160 --> 0:45:00.200 Well, I think that we are endowed with intelligence and 0:45:00.320 --> 0:45:03.759 insight and wisdom, and we actually have the ability to 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:08.759 hold multiple truths. And this adversarial paradigm that we have 0:45:08.920 --> 0:45:12.279 constructed that it's them versus us or Team A or 0:45:12.320 --> 0:45:15.520 Team B has not served us well. And I wanted 0:45:15.560 --> 0:45:20.680 people to try to really not allow that line to 0:45:20.760 --> 0:45:24.840 be demarketed. I from the beginning was saying, it's not 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:29.320 like such a crazy statement. It's just that I think 0:45:29.480 --> 0:45:31.799 maybe it was a voice that was not so commonly heard, 0:45:31.880 --> 0:45:35.040 but I was saying, I am extremely worried and concerned 0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:39.640 about the innocent civilians in Gaza and not but and 0:45:40.239 --> 0:45:44.040 I'm extremely worried and concerned about the innocent civilians in 0:45:44.080 --> 0:45:47.399 Gaza who were dragged there on October seventh. You can 0:45:47.480 --> 0:45:51.120 hold both of those ideas. And I actually had read 0:45:51.120 --> 0:45:54.279 a piece by a journalist early on before I went 0:45:54.320 --> 0:45:57.640 to speak at the UN the first time on day eighteen, 0:45:58.360 --> 0:46:01.440 and he said, if you only cry when one sides 0:46:01.520 --> 0:46:05.400 babies die, it means that your moral compass is broken, 0:46:05.800 --> 0:46:09.480 and therefore your humanity is broken. And I remember thinking, 0:46:10.080 --> 0:46:12.279 I really pray that. I don't know how long this 0:46:12.440 --> 0:46:15.440 is going to take, but I don't want my humanity broken. 0:46:16.239 --> 0:46:19.560 And I was thinking recently because I was reading an 0:46:19.640 --> 0:46:23.120 article and there was a picture and it was of 0:46:23.160 --> 0:46:25.160 someone who did not look like me, and he was 0:46:25.200 --> 0:46:27.520 not from my neck of the woods. And I started 0:46:27.560 --> 0:46:29.480 crying because it was a picture of someone who had 0:46:29.480 --> 0:46:33.200 lost his family, and I was so relieved. I thought, well, 0:46:33.239 --> 0:46:37.120 thank God that my moral compass is still calibrated. It 0:46:37.160 --> 0:46:40.520 doesn't mean like I'm this awesome person. I'm a normal person. 0:46:41.120 --> 0:46:44.840 It's just calibrated, like when you start with weighing something, 0:46:44.840 --> 0:46:48.360 that the scale should start in a fair and balanced way. 0:46:48.680 --> 0:46:51.399 And it was for some reason, something that people were 0:46:51.560 --> 0:46:53.719 very surprised to hear. 0:46:54.040 --> 0:46:56.080 I'm going to ask you something, and if you don't 0:46:56.080 --> 0:47:01.160 want to answer, I understand when people ask you why 0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:04.000 this happened to your son? What do you say? 0:47:04.239 --> 0:47:08.120 You know? I'm a religious person, a person who really 0:47:08.120 --> 0:47:11.759 feels a closeness to this idea of God. I think 0:47:11.760 --> 0:47:15.920 that's a really loaded term God. We all have different 0:47:15.920 --> 0:47:19.200 ideas of what that means. But I feel very much 0:47:19.400 --> 0:47:22.960 that we are all one little stitch in a massive 0:47:23.040 --> 0:47:27.480 tapestry that we are generally not privy to understand and 0:47:27.600 --> 0:47:32.680 see the whole entire work. We can't see everything, and 0:47:32.719 --> 0:47:36.759 so we see our little circle that we have our 0:47:37.239 --> 0:47:40.759 vision honed in on, and we don't have perspective. And 0:47:40.960 --> 0:47:43.760 I think a lot about how growing up in Chicago, 0:47:43.760 --> 0:47:46.400 my mother took me to the art Institute often. She 0:47:46.520 --> 0:47:50.480 really wanted me to be cultured. And her favorite painting 0:47:50.560 --> 0:47:53.680 was by George Sarrah and it's a pointless painting. So 0:47:53.880 --> 0:47:56.319 she would put me, now they have ropes, you're not 0:47:56.360 --> 0:47:58.440 allowed to go as close as we used to go. 0:47:58.560 --> 0:48:00.960 I actually think they put those ropes up because of us. 0:48:01.080 --> 0:48:03.279 They were like that lady keeps putting her daughter right 0:48:03.320 --> 0:48:06.279 next to the painting, and she would say, what do 0:48:06.320 --> 0:48:08.640 you see? And I would say, oh, it's blurry, It's 0:48:08.680 --> 0:48:10.960 just it's picks. I wouldn't say it's pixelated, but I'm 0:48:10.960 --> 0:48:13.600 telling you it was just pixelated. It was just dots 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:16.480 of gray and red and blue and green, and I 0:48:16.480 --> 0:48:18.600 couldn't make sense of it. And then she'd say, close 0:48:18.640 --> 0:48:21.120 your eyes and take fifteen steps back. I don't know 0:48:21.160 --> 0:48:23.960 why fifteen, but that was her number, and open your eyes, 0:48:24.080 --> 0:48:27.120 and then I would see this magnificent masterpiece in front 0:48:27.160 --> 0:48:29.840 of me. When you're very close to something, you just 0:48:29.920 --> 0:48:33.000 see the confusion and the chaos. I feel very blessed 0:48:33.040 --> 0:48:36.000 that I had hersh only blessing. What happened for those 0:48:36.040 --> 0:48:38.400 three hundred and thirty days before he was killed was 0:48:38.640 --> 0:48:42.960 obviously twisted and torturous, and so much anxiety and misery 0:48:43.080 --> 0:48:46.319 and very difficult to describe in words. And yet I 0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:50.600 also realized it was a privilege to try to save him. 0:48:50.719 --> 0:48:53.680 I realize that now because usually in life, you know, 0:48:53.719 --> 0:48:55.719 when we really love people, we say like, I would 0:48:55.719 --> 0:48:58.880 do anything for you, but we very rarely have to. 0:48:59.280 --> 0:49:03.600 And we really tried to do every single thing we 0:49:03.760 --> 0:49:07.120 possibly could, things I still can't talk about that we did, 0:49:07.360 --> 0:49:11.359 and then he was killed and not everyone has had 0:49:11.440 --> 0:49:14.879 that opportunity before they lose someone they love to share 0:49:14.920 --> 0:49:18.000 them with the world, to try so hard to save them. 0:49:18.160 --> 0:49:20.200 Many people have done that. I have friends who have 0:49:20.280 --> 0:49:23.319 lost their children to cancer. They tried so hard to 0:49:23.400 --> 0:49:26.640 save them. And I am able to see, even with 0:49:26.920 --> 0:49:30.840 this excruciation of suffering and mourning and loss and grief, 0:49:30.920 --> 0:49:33.560 that there's a how to the why that I have 0:49:33.600 --> 0:49:37.680 to carry and figure out. And I know that I 0:49:37.760 --> 0:49:42.200 could have just been a mother to two vivacious, dynamic, 0:49:42.320 --> 0:49:45.680 delicious daughters, which is what I have now. I have 0:49:45.840 --> 0:49:48.840 very good friends that also just have two daughters. They're perfect, 0:49:48.880 --> 0:49:52.200 they're complete, nothing's missing from their family. But we got 0:49:52.239 --> 0:49:57.080 this additional, magnificent, glorious cookie for twenty three years and 0:49:57.160 --> 0:50:01.040 three hundred and thirty four days. And I will pay 0:50:01.400 --> 0:50:06.520 with the pain that price of having had that transcendent gift. 0:50:06.880 --> 0:50:09.960 And so why did it happen that? I don't know. 0:50:10.120 --> 0:50:13.560 I'm not privy to that, but I really believe that 0:50:13.680 --> 0:50:17.680 it is part of a plan. It doesn't exonerate or 0:50:17.719 --> 0:50:20.560 give a pass to the people in power and in 0:50:20.880 --> 0:50:26.040 places of influence who could have done things to save him. 0:50:26.160 --> 0:50:29.320 It doesn't give them a pass, but I really believe 0:50:29.320 --> 0:50:34.319 there's a much larger picture, and I am thankful that's 0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:36.880 how I see it, because I think that even with 0:50:36.960 --> 0:50:40.240 all the suffering that I'm bearing, it would be almost 0:50:40.440 --> 0:50:44.759 impossible if I didn't have that kind of perspective on 0:50:46.000 --> 0:50:48.359 what I see as having happened to us. 0:50:48.800 --> 0:50:52.279 Victor Frankel's name comes up in the book and is 0:50:52.360 --> 0:50:56.400 intertwined with Hersh's story. And my grandma was a Holocaust survivor, 0:50:57.040 --> 0:51:00.399 and I picture Hersh's face. I feel, you was killed 0:51:00.440 --> 0:51:01.520 because he was Jewish? 0:51:01.760 --> 0:51:06.239 It was. And you know in Yadvishem Holocaust Museum that's 0:51:06.239 --> 0:51:10.480 in Jerusalem, in the old entry hall, it's now been redone, 0:51:10.640 --> 0:51:12.680 there used to be a quote on the wall that said, 0:51:13.400 --> 0:51:16.560 a person who's killed because he is Jewish is called holy. 0:51:16.840 --> 0:51:20.600 If you're only killed because of that one reason, it's holy. 0:51:21.080 --> 0:51:23.920 And I think that Kirsch very much was holy. I 0:51:23.960 --> 0:51:28.160 think that the beautiful sixth were holy. Edin, Carmel, alex 0:51:28.400 --> 0:51:31.440 Almo Orie who he was killed with, were holy. I 0:51:31.480 --> 0:51:35.320 think the forty six who were killed in total in 0:51:35.360 --> 0:51:37.960 captivity were holy. I think the people who were killed 0:51:38.000 --> 0:51:40.600 in the Holocaust were holy, and that's also a hard 0:51:40.640 --> 0:51:43.239 word holy. You know, we'll say things like oh, it 0:51:43.280 --> 0:51:48.680 means hallowed or sacred. Really holy in Hebrew means separate, different, 0:51:48.920 --> 0:51:50.280 and they were separate and different. 0:51:50.560 --> 0:51:53.680 You write, our spirits were mangled, and our hearts were stolen, 0:51:53.880 --> 0:51:56.480 our life was stolen. There is nothing like the feeling 0:51:56.560 --> 0:51:58.880 of putting someone you carried for nine months inside of 0:51:58.920 --> 0:51:59.959 your body into the ground. 0:52:00.600 --> 0:52:03.640 I've noticed when you talk about the pain, you touch 0:52:03.680 --> 0:52:04.760 your chest very often. 0:52:05.200 --> 0:52:06.560 My therapist said that too. 0:52:06.800 --> 0:52:10.719 Really, yes, what does it feel like to carry this 0:52:10.880 --> 0:52:12.239 around every single day? 0:52:12.520 --> 0:52:18.160 I think it's exhausting and confusing and a gift because 0:52:18.239 --> 0:52:22.040 it is that love. And I'm very aware that pain 0:52:22.800 --> 0:52:27.000 is grief, and grief is love that continues to grow 0:52:27.320 --> 0:52:31.680 after the person is gone, and that's really beautiful and 0:52:31.719 --> 0:52:35.560 that is never going anywhere. The love that is stronger 0:52:35.600 --> 0:52:41.920 than death. That's really just this absolutely shining idea. And 0:52:42.000 --> 0:52:44.840 I love that because I think I talked to Anderson 0:52:44.880 --> 0:52:48.399 about this that I think hate Peter's out I really do. 0:52:48.840 --> 0:52:51.680 I think that the strongest force that outlives time and 0:52:51.719 --> 0:52:55.359 outlives death is love. It's such a privilege. So I'm 0:52:55.400 --> 0:52:58.359 not good at this. I'm very turned inside out, and 0:52:58.560 --> 0:53:03.480 I'm ugly in terms of like pulsing and oozing and bleeding. 0:53:03.840 --> 0:53:07.040 I'm a wounded animal because I love him and I 0:53:07.080 --> 0:53:09.000 love him the second and he's right here. 0:53:09.160 --> 0:53:10.400 You can feel him still. 0:53:10.320 --> 0:53:13.799 Oh, for sure, all day, I mean, And that's what's exhausting. 0:53:13.880 --> 0:53:16.320 And John and I talk about that all the time. Again, 0:53:16.520 --> 0:53:19.560 we're not unique millions of people. I'm only familiar with 0:53:19.600 --> 0:53:22.600 bearing a child. I've been blessed. I haven't buried parents. 0:53:22.760 --> 0:53:25.279 I have half siblings who are alive. You know, I 0:53:25.320 --> 0:53:28.919 did bury grandparents, but I think that I very much 0:53:29.000 --> 0:53:30.880 expected that one day I was going to bury them, 0:53:30.880 --> 0:53:33.279 and I had wonderful relationships with them, and nobody had 0:53:33.320 --> 0:53:39.360 a horrible death. So this is a really challenging weight 0:53:39.800 --> 0:53:42.400 that I will always carry. And what I'm trying to 0:53:42.640 --> 0:53:46.760 try to aim for and aspire to is to figure 0:53:46.760 --> 0:53:50.759 out how do I carry it a little less clunkily 0:53:51.320 --> 0:53:55.040 and a little bit more gracefully. But I will always 0:53:55.160 --> 0:53:58.880 have it, and I actually feel really privileged. 0:53:59.400 --> 0:54:02.400 He who has why can bear anyhow is it insane 0:54:02.440 --> 0:54:04.560 to ask you what your why is? 0:54:04.640 --> 0:54:07.600 Now? We're trying very hard to figure it out. I mean, 0:54:07.640 --> 0:54:09.600 I think, to me, it's clear that part of our 0:54:09.640 --> 0:54:12.800 why is to pick up Hersh's why and keep running, 0:54:13.239 --> 0:54:15.680 even though I think he did his why. That's why 0:54:15.680 --> 0:54:18.000 he's not here anymore, you know. And I say at 0:54:18.040 --> 0:54:21.040 one point in the book, because when the final hostages 0:54:21.080 --> 0:54:23.880 came home who were alive, a lot of people said 0:54:23.920 --> 0:54:27.560 things to me of the genre of it should have 0:54:27.560 --> 0:54:30.680 been Hersh. It's not fair. How is it not him? 0:54:30.920 --> 0:54:33.839 And I said, he's not supposed to be here. And 0:54:34.239 --> 0:54:36.200 the way I know he's not supposed to be here 0:54:36.480 --> 0:54:39.120 is that he's not here. You know. I also get 0:54:39.239 --> 0:54:44.279 a lot of solace from this idea that the patriarch 0:54:44.400 --> 0:54:48.840 of Jewish mysticism, the Balshemtov, was once asked why do 0:54:49.000 --> 0:54:54.680 souls come to this world, this messy, tricky, difficult, complex place, like, 0:54:54.680 --> 0:54:57.480 what is the point? Why are we here? And he said, 0:54:57.640 --> 0:55:01.120 every soul comes to this world so that one day 0:55:01.640 --> 0:55:05.759 that soul can do one act of kindness for one 0:55:05.880 --> 0:55:09.160 other person and that's it. That doesn't mean you don't 0:55:09.200 --> 0:55:11.560 have to be doing thousands of acts of kindness throughout 0:55:11.560 --> 0:55:14.439 your life. You do, and to improve things and to 0:55:14.520 --> 0:55:19.120 live a life of meaning. But it means that really 0:55:19.320 --> 0:55:22.960 there is one thing in your lifetime, one thing, and 0:55:23.040 --> 0:55:25.680 it could just be smiling at someone who no one's 0:55:25.760 --> 0:55:29.279 gentle with. And I thought to myself, could it be 0:55:29.400 --> 0:55:32.080 that Hirsch did his kindness when he was two and 0:55:32.120 --> 0:55:34.560 we were living in Berkeley, or when he was six 0:55:34.600 --> 0:55:37.040 and we were living in Richmond, Virginia. Or when he 0:55:37.120 --> 0:55:39.839 was fifteen and we were living in Jerusalem, or when 0:55:39.880 --> 0:55:42.080 he was twenty three and he was in a tunnel 0:55:42.440 --> 0:55:45.560 under Ratha. I don't know, but it occurred to me 0:55:45.680 --> 0:55:48.240 maybe I already did my kindness when I was twelve 0:55:48.320 --> 0:55:51.000 years old, So why am I still here? And I 0:55:51.080 --> 0:55:55.520 realized maybe someone else has to do their one kindness 0:55:55.520 --> 0:55:58.600 to me when I'm eighty eight. So I have to 0:55:58.640 --> 0:56:03.239 stick around because that's the synergy of this enterprise, of 0:56:03.280 --> 0:56:06.880 being interwoven in the human tapestry of life. And what 0:56:07.000 --> 0:56:10.719 I do know for sure is Hirsch did his kindness, 0:56:11.320 --> 0:56:14.040 and he did his Why Rachel, thank you so much? 0:56:14.440 --> 0:56:18.560 Thank you. Danielle. 0:56:20.640 --> 0:56:23.759 Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day, 0:56:24.000 --> 0:56:37.319 to have a good day. I'll see you next week.