 Koby
Mandell's Mother (cont...) (BACK
TO NEWSLETTER) The
Rambam talmidim listened in awed silence
to Mrs. Mandell's presentation as she lovingly
described
her young son. They were an American family who
had moved to Israel to "put the Torah at the
center of their lives," she said.
Young Koby took the move gamely but had trouble
at first learning Hebrew and making new friends,
Mrs. Mandell said. She had hoped that this experience
of being an "outsider" might help teach Koby
compassion.
It was on the day when Koby was accepted into
high school that he took a hike with his friend
Yosef into the hills near their home. There they
were confronted by terrorists and
brutally murdered. The poignancy of the
tale
was
intensified
by the
knowledge
that,
had he
not been murdered, Koby Mandell would
be the
same age of many of the boys in attendance at her
presentation.
At her son's shiva, Mrs. Mandell said,
one of his Israeli classmates told
her that Koby, a star soccer player,
had once chosen him first as a member of Koby's
schoolyard team, despite the fact that he was the
worst athlete in the group. Mrs. Mandell said this
story gratified her immensely because she realized
that Koby had indeed learned compassion for the "outsider."
"I think there's a myth about moving
on after
one has experienced tragedy," she said in
response to a question from junior Yaakov
Miller. "I
don't think of it as moving on but moving
with.
The pain really never leaves you but the challenge
is to not stay in the darkness but to transform
it into something bright and full of love." She
went on to describe herself as a survivor and
not as a victim.
Despite the enormity of her
personal tragedy, Mrs. Mandell said her religious
commitment and her faith in Hashem has
been strengthened since that dark
day.
"I think Hashem wanted
this. He wanted my son Koby to put a face on the
suffering of so
many in Israel during these times. His death inspired
the foundation and the camp that are now helping
others to better lives with such pain."
Mrs. Mandell and her husband Seth, parents to
three other children, knew that "in order to go
on, we
needed to transform the cruelty of Koby's death
into acts of kindness and hope." For that reason,
they created the Koby Mandell Foundation which
provides healing programs for families struck by
terrorism.
Visit the website for the Koby Mandell Foundation
by clicking
here.
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