“We small people can change this big world, one smile at a time, one kind word at a time, one mitzvah at a time” – The Lubavitcher Rebbe, ob”m
There are those who only see the good in others and every situation. One such person is Rahel (Roz) Sherman whom I first met on Facebook. She’s one of those people who always puts inspiring quotes on her page, encourages others and relates to the beauty around her.
I was on my way to meet her in Jerusalem on her first visit to Israel since her husband’s passing and something annoyed me on the bus. I made a mental note to complain about it to her and then realized I couldn’t. There is no negativity in the aura of Rahel Sherman. She doesn’t register it, it doesn’t compute.
Rahel’s story is as convoluted as the gnarled roots of the tree trucks of the maple trees in the forest near Jerusalem, NY where she makes her home, but its branches embrace each other and touch the sky. As she inspires us all to do.
Rahel was born in Rochester, the eldest of 10 children to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father – though it’s possible with the name Voloshin that there was some Jewishness in his family. Rahel was born with several disabilities including hearing loss; Syndactyly, a condition where her fingers didn’t develop properly, and a limp from almost losing her leg at birth that requires her to walk with a cane. But none of this registers as her 1,000-watt smile blinds you to any physical challenges this woman has undergone.
She tells a story of when she was a young girl in school and a fellow classmate made fun of her fingers. She didn’t understand what the boy was talking about as she never viewed herself as deficient in any way. She asked her teacher about it and the teacher responded that the boy didn’t understand. “God made you like this for a reason,” she said. The next time he bothered her, Rahel said, “I’d rather have small fingers than a small mind.” She hadn’t meant to hurt him, she was just repeating what her teacher had said, that he was unable to understand. And he never bothered her again.
Rahel has a Master’s degree in social work from Wurzweiler but had to cut her career short in her 50s when her fibromyalgia and hearing loss became more problematic.
She and her late husband Barak bought an old farmhouse and renovated it. Undaunted by the fact that it had once been the scene of a murder, Rahel and Barak filled it with love and made it a home for many otherwise homeless people (and animals), including foster children and people who basically had nowhere else to go. All of this even when the Shermans didn’t have enough resources for themselves.
“I was born on the 25th day of Elul,” says Rahel “and when I learned that tradition says Hashem created light on that day, it reinforced the belief I held since childhood that I was meant to increase the light.”
Elul is also the acronym for “Ani leDodi VeDodi Li,” which very much describes her relationship with her late husband. Rahel married Barak, the love of her life three times, first in a private ceremony under the guidance of a pastor, then in a civil ceremony in 1977 and finally in 1992 in an Orthodox wedding.
“I first realized, in 1988, that I was not ‘half Jewish’ but a Jew halachically. I was 39 then. I knew my husband was my soul mate and prayed he would convert, which he did halachically, in 1992.”