ON HELEN BERNSTEIN: for Eastover, a bit of Hebrew for the Gentiles

by smf

April 3, 2015 :: Today, starting a sundown, is the first day of Passover, in Hebrew: PESACH - The Festival of Freedom.

Today is also, for Gentiles: Good Friday – the most solemn of days.

Today, also marks the eighteenth anniversary of the death of Helen Bernstein - who was a lot of things to a lot of people. Teacher. Mother. Friend. Union leader. Maven – a Yiddish word meaning ‘accumulator of knowledge’.

In Judaic Numerology (Gematria) the number 18 (or actually the total of 1 and 8) equals "CHAI", Hebrew for LIFE. Hence 18 is a blessed+meaningful number.

Today at noon a small and very unorthodox MINYAN (the smallest number of believers that can form a congregation) met on the steps of Helen Bernstein’s namesake high school at noon and told small stories and remembered the teacher and the mother and the friend and the union leader and the maven. The world was not changed by what we said, it already had been and continues to be.

L’Chiam.