Shalom for Charlotte

Adapted from my drasha this past Shabbos. I was so moved by this story, and so many who heard it were as well, that I was asked to share it here, to help spread this incredible movement.

This week, an email arrived in my inbox, sent to hundreds of Rabbanim across the country. It asked for one thing. Declare this Shabbos a Shabbos of Shalom.

On June 2nd, just six weeks ago, Charlotte Herzberg, an eight-year-old girl from Pomona, New York, was riding her bike near her home when she was struck by a car. The driver was her father Yudi’s best friend and chavrusa.

Charlotte did not survive. When Yudi and his wife Chumi left the hospital, minutes after identifying their daughter, they decided together that there was one stop to make before going home to prepare for the funeral. They drove directly to the home of their close friend. The man who had been driving the car. They knocked on the door, and the two men embraced. Yudi told his best friend that as heartbroken as they were, they would not allow this tragedy to come between them.

The next day, at his daughter’s funeral, Yudi told the hundreds of people who had gathered that this was a test. The Satan wanted to prove that their community could not withstand machlokes, and they were going to prove him wrong. During shiva, person after person heard the same message.

Soon after shiva ended, the family launched Shalom for Charlotte. The premise is simple. If you have had a falling out with someone, a family member, a friend, a business partner, anyone, reach out. Begin the healing. Do it in the zechus, the merit, of Charlotte, a little girl whose essence was seeing the good in every person.

The stories pouring into their website come from over forty countries. Brothers who had not spoken in seven years, now talking for over an hour. People who spent years waiting for the other person to apologize first, deciding that shalom matters more than being right. As of this Shabbos, thousands of what the family calls Acts of Shalom have taken place.

That is the email that arrived in my inbox this week. It came from Yudi Herzberg, asking Rabbanim across the country to declare this Shabbos a Shabbos of Shalom. A Shabbos to commit, in some small way, to increasing shalom with a fellow Jew. To help Jews feel connected. Never l’vad. Never alone.

I, of course, agreed.

How do relationships break? Almost always, through words. A comment. A story repeated. An opinion offered without being asked. Which is why I believe that if we want to mend relationships, the place to start is the way we speak.

There is one person the Torah commands to sit alone, to be badad. The metzorah. It is the same word Yirmiyahu uses to open Megillas Eicha. Eicha yashva badad. How does a city of thousands sit alone. Chazal connect the metzorah’s tzaraas to lashon hara. He created separation between people, so he tastes the loneliness he caused. Then he brings shtei tziporim, two birds. One is slaughtered and one is sent away. Rabbi Bernard Weinberger, in his sefer Shemen HaTov, explains that the two birds represent two failures of speech: the hurtful words he spoke, and the uplifting words he could have said but did not. The Torah does not only ask us to stop speaking negatively. It asks us to use speech to build.

We underestimate the power of our comments. We think we are just sharing an opinion, making a joke. They are laughing also, so it must be fine. Someone tells me a story about something terrible another person did to them, and however hard I try, I cannot fully shake the opinion I have now formed. One perspective, without context. This kind of storytelling destroys reputations and leaves people badad.

It should be no surprise that the very first Tisha B’Av began with the words of the Meraglim. Lashon hara, spoken about a land. Chazal tell us the second Beis HaMikdash was destroyed through sinas chinam. The Chafetz Chaim explains how that hatred spread. Through speech. Through the way Jews spoke about one another. Which is why he writes, in the introduction to his sefer, that repairing this aveira is the ticket out of galus and into geula. And Rav Kook completed the thought. If we were destroyed through baseless hatred, we will be rebuilt only through baseless love. Ahavas chinam.

No one would have judged Yudi and Chumi Herzberg if they could never again face the friend who had been driving the car. It would not be right to ask any of us what we would do in a situation this horrible. What they are doing is superhuman. But that is exactly why it should inspire us. We are not being asked to match it. Only to learn from it, and to take one step in its direction.

The email found me at the right moment. I had just returned from a week in Poland, leading a group from our community.

At the end of that very long week, we gathered for our last meal together. Seudah shlishis, the closing hours of Shabbos. It lasted over four hours. We did not make Havdalah until close to midnight.

One by one, every single person got up and shared. What the week had done for them. What had shifted. What they hoped to take home and unpack from their suitcases.

A week in Poland puts your life into perspective. It shrinks the small things down to their actual size. And what struck me, hour after hour, was that everyone spoke about the same things. Time, people, and values. That life is short. That the relationships we have are the ones that will matter. That we get caught up in the grind and rarely take a moment to breathe. Not one person spoke about the small things.

What matters is connection. What matters is each other.

In Poland we mourned what was done to us. These days ask a harder question. What are we doing to one another?

The Nine Days and Tisha B’Av are heavy. Somber. But they are also a gift. Once a year, they slow us down long enough to take stock. Where have my words pushed someone away? Which relationship have I allowed to remain broken? Incredibly, while we cannot change the past, with our speech and the way we act toward one another, we can change our future.

Now imagine an entire community doing that in the same week. Hundreds of Acts of Shalom, before Tisha B’Av even arrives.

So this week, I am asking something of myself, and of you. Maybe there is someone you have drifted from, someone waiting for you to reach out first. One call. One text. And if there is no one, the ask is even simpler. Say the uplifting words you would normally keep to yourself. Hold back the comment. Let go of the story you were about to repeat. One act of shalom, in the zechus of Charlotte.

Never l’vad. Never alone.

In the zechus of Charlotte, Shaindel bas Chaim Yehuda Leib, a”h. Join the movement at shalomforcharlotte.com.