My story about Barry is very recent – I only met him over one shabbat but from that one weekend, I learned a lot about him…how much he treasured life, how much he loved his family, and how important making aliya was to him.

This Shabbat occurred the week before he went in to the hospital for the final time; when Barry, Amy and the trips were spending Shabbat in Modi’in by their cousins and considering our neighborhood to be their touch-down location for their aliya.

We spent time speaking after davening, both Friday night and Shabbat day, and had the honor to host the Shuter family on Shabbat afternoon for Seudah Shlishit. The trips hit it off with our 7 year old daughter and 5 year old son and everyone was enjoying themselves tremendously.

We got to hear about Barry’s fight against cancer, his desire to move to Israel for the good of his family (even when job prospects were unclear), and what drove him in life.

As I understood during a shiva visit after his petirah, we were able to see a side of Barry that very few saw – he was very outgoing and comfortable around others while spending that Shabbat in our community. It seemed to confirm that Israel (and possibly our neighborhood) were the right place for him and his family.

Unfortunately, Hashem had other ideas. While Barry’s final resting place is in Israel and his family has made aliya and found a wonderful community to settle in, this was obviously not what Barry had intended.

All I can say, is that it was an honor to meet Barry, even just that one weekend – he strengthened my belief that our aliya was the right thing for our family and that with the proper desire and belief in Hashem, we can make all our dreams come true.

As we start saying Selichot before Rosh Hashana and come upon Barry’s birthday, my hope is that Barry’s memory serves as an inspiration to all to strengthen their bond with Hashem and do everything possible to make their dreams come true. Life is precious and we need to take full advantage of that.

May Barry’s neshama have an “aliya” due to the positive influence he had on so many other people, throughout his too-short life.
ת.נ.צ.ב.ה

P.S. Who would have thought at that time, that I (as gabbai) would be giving Barry his last aliya l’torah…surely, not I.

 

Larry Stern

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 25th, 2011 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Testimonials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.