The Jewish High Holidays are built around memory, renewal, and the passage of time. But what happens when time itself has broken? As Rosh Hashanah approaches, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove and Jon Frankel welcome Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was taken hostage on October 7, 2023 and murdered in captivity after 328 days. Rachel’s new book, When We See You Again, gives voice not to recovery or closure, but to what she calls “packages of pain.”
Rachel remembers Hersh as “the perfect ordinary, and the blessed ordinary”—a curious young man with a remarkable capacity to listen. She recalls the final moment she saw him, walking out the door after Shabbat dinner and turning back to say, “Love you. See you tomorrow.” Nearly three years later, Rachel remains frozen there even as the world moves forward.
That collision between Jewish time and the timelessness of grief sits at the heart of the conversation. Yizkor commands Jews to remember, but Rachel remembers every waking second. Instead, she says she would prefer eight minutes of amnesia—a striking challenge to notions of faith, ritual, healing, and resilience.
And yet, there is yet. Rachel speaks about the parts of her former life she cannot return to “yet,” and searches for a “why” powerful enough to help her bear the “how” of living without Hersh. This is not a conversation about moving on, but about what it means to keep moving at all.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin's Book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GFSNF8GV?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove:
https://www.instagram.com/elliot_cosgrove
https://x.com/RabbiCosgrove
Park Avenue Synagogue:
https://www.pasyn.org
https://www.instagram.com/parkavenuesyn/#
Jon Frankel:
https://www.instagram.com/skifrankel
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