A train in Israel pulls up to the station.
It is often said that the greatest individuals are handed the greatest challenges. One Jerusalem family is the personification of this, and a powerful video from Rabbi Nissan Kaplan tells their story.
Mrs. Chaya Pollack thought her life was over when she was hit in a horrific train accident. Her husband waited by her side while she lay in a hospital bed, unresponsive, for weeks. Not only did Chaya live, she learned to walk and talk again, and even raised nine cherished children.
That made it all the more devastating when she was diagnosed with cancer last year. By this time, she was a known powerhouse, and an inspiration to many, including revered teacher at the Mir Yeshiva Rabbi Kaplan himself. Rabbi Kaplan visited her in the hospital to sit by her side, and drew strength from Mrs. Pollack's unbreakable faith.
The family would be okay, Chaya said, because her eldest daughter Etty was doing a wonderful job of caring for her siblings. And when Mrs. Pollack passed away, Etty did become like a second mother to her siblings, sending them off with their lunches and tucking them into bed each night.
Until she collapsed.
Rabbi Kaplan and others watched on in horror when, recently, Etty Pollack was diagnosed with a brain tumor and quickly passed away. This incredible family who had been an inspiration to all for their strength, was tested once again. “They lost mother number one, and mother number two.”
Rabbi Kaplan tells this heartbreaking story and more, in his appeal to the public to join him in having a Torah scroll written in memory of the two very special women, as a comfort and inspiration to his family.
“[It’s] the biggest mitzvah in the Jewish People,” says the Rabbi emphatically in the video. Readers can join the effort and read more details here.