*Healing for Broken Hearts | Maya Tevet Dayan | 6 Minutes on Friday | July 25, 2025*
Let me tell you a story. This week I posted a short post on Facebook about the bereaved mothers of this war—I wrote that bereaved mothers used to be older women in headscarves, bent over graves in black-and-white newspaper photos. But now they are my age, in my feed, at Friday yoga, in the same T-shirts I wear. Just recently, they posted photos with their children in Southeast Asia. And now they’re writing posts saying they want to die, from longing. And you read them, and you want to die, too. Never in my experience have bereaved mothers felt so close as in this war.
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I wrote to them that I read their posts. I hear their voices. Even though they’re hidden behind that terrible phrase “cleared for publication,” which we’ve heard 895 times since the start of this war—they’re not invisible to me. Not them, and not those around them—fathers, grandparents, siblings, sons and daughters, uncles and neighbors. All of them grieving. Someone commented: “Every soldier lost is a mass casualty event,” and that definition gutted me.
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Every soldier lost is a mass casualty event.
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Anyway, among the many responses I received, I got this email: “Hi Maya, I’m Shira Yavetz Appel, mother of Captain Yiftach Yavetz, the operations officer of Maglan, who was killed in a heroic battle in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7. I used to say I hated bereaved mothers. I didn’t want to be part of that dubious club, so I kept my distance… But after traveling abroad with other mothers, I discovered the strength of being with women who share this pain. I don’t know why, but after reading your post, I left work and drove to the cemetery, a place I usually avoid. And I wrote you, Maya, a few words:
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I’m the cool bereaved mom. Wearing trendy Nike sneakers and loose Scotch & Soda pants, a perfect pink “Funny Bunny” gel manicure. My hair’s colored just right (though, my God, where did all this gray come from?) and here I am, sitting by my son’s grave.
I drove here in my sleek hybrid from my very hip job. I talked with my cool friends on the way. I’m about to buy the latest bestseller, On All Fours, and my husband and I just finished watching the trendy show Neighbours & Friends.
And yes, we’re heading to the Dolomites this summer with the kids, staying at some fancy spa hotel.
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So how is it that I’m here and my son is underground?
How???
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In what world did I become a bereaved mother?!
Please keep writing! You give strength and stir something in many, or more precisely, in many women.
Thank you and hugs,
Shira
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*Written just now at the cemetery.
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I read the letter and got chills. Maybe because she was exactly the kind of mother I wrote about, without knowing her. Or maybe because of the gesture she made—leaving work in the middle of the day and going to the cemetery, to her son. Breaking the routine because her heart was broken.
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It reminded me of a beautiful passage someone once sent me. He said it was the most meaningful thing he knew for broken hearts. It’s from the Mishna, Tractate Middot. It appears to explain how to enter the Temple—but really, it tells us something deeper. Maybe the deepest thing of all. It goes like this:
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“All who enter the Temple mount would enter by the right, circle, and exit the left way, except for one who had suffered an incident, who would circle from the left. Why are you going the wrong way. Because I am bereaved. May the One Who dwells in this house comfort you.Because I have been banned. May the One Who dwells in this house put in their hearts to bring you close again. Because I am mentally unwell. May the One who dwells in this House heal you”.
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In our words: everyone enters and exits the Temple the same way, on the right. There is order. There is a norm. But someone who has been struck, by grief, or exclusion, or mental collapse, is allowed by the Temple's laws to deviate. To enter from the left. To go against the flow. Or in today’s terms: to leave work and drive to the cemetery. When others see this, they ask: Why did you break the pattern? And he tells them what broke him. The grief. The sorrow. The inner collapse.
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And here’s the beauty, the ancient wisdom: The passersby do not judge. They do not demand he return to the norm. Instead, they pray for him: May the One who dwells in this House comfort you. Or draw you close. Or heal you.
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This ancient text tells us what happens when the community recognizes the brokenness of one individual. And what it takes to heal: that the broken one does not hide it, but lets themselves step aside. And that the community does not turn away. Because maybe what heals a broken heart is precisely the permission to go against the flow, and the knowledge that those who see you will comfort you and heal you.how powerful collective compassion can be.
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And then I thought of Shira, Yiftach’s mother, may his brave memory be a blessing. Of my post that told the bereaved mothers, “I see you.” And of Shira who read it, left everything, and ascended to her own Temple, to her son. Broke the routine, because life had broken its own. And then she sat down. And then she wrote to me.
And that’s the story.
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To close, I want to dedicate this poem by Eeva Kilpi to Shira and to all the bereaved mothers—and also the fathers, widows, and widowers of this war. Even on the thousandth reading, this poem remains a lesson and a prayer:
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*Don’t Think Life Is Short*
by Eeva Kilpi
Think: What a remarkable experience.
Because length isn’t the point at all—
but rather that one even got to experience this.
What happened during it
is actually secondary.
That one experienced a beginning and an end
without understanding what was happening,
and existed in between,
doing something without understanding that either.
And that most of it is nonexistence,
and this sliver -life - only a contrast to it.
At times, nonexistence becomes tender,
and becomes aware of itself.
You can’t demand continuity
from such a phenomenon.
But that one got to experience it,
that one can read it,
that one can sing it and write,
paint it and play it,
dance and photograph it,
act it out, cry it,
and laugh, mock it, and love—
and that it hurt so much,
and that it was so vile and hated,
and that to give it up causes such horror—
that it gives rise to such joy,
and that it is grief.
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This column is dedicated to the memory of the late Captain Yiftach Yavetz, and to the 894 fallen heroes of this war.
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Wishing us all Shabbat Shalom,
*Maya Tevet Dayan*