Mushka Sudri of Delhi and Shaindy Berstein of Cochin write about their fellow shlucha, the unforgettable Mira Scharf, may Hashem avenge her blood. * Small stories about a great woman
By Mushka Sudri, shlucha in Delhi, India
The wound is still fresh; the void she left cries out.
Our eyes have yet to get used to the darkness after the light was extinguished.
I will never forget the wise advice and encouraging words.
Mira.
***
We arrived in Delhi to fill in for the Scharfs while they were in Eretz Yisroel and we got straight to work. A woman called the Chabad House wanting to use the mikva. It occurred to me that I – yes, I – would be the one to supervise her.
I immediately called Mira for guidance. I had never done this before. Mira explained all the halachic details to me and said that she personally was particular about learning with any woman who came about the role of the Jewish woman and the mission the Rebbe gave to every woman.
If you know the kind of women who come to use the mikva at the Chabad House in India, you know that this is not realistic. These women are religious and know the halachos and are not interested in Chassidus. Aside from that, as far as Mira was concerned, this required taking care of technical as well as spiritual details, a super-human task.
In this conversation, Mira basically laid out for me my path on shlichus. She did not allow herself any leniencies, but carried everything out with mesirus nefesh and simcha. It demanded a lot of me, but for Mira, I made the effort.
She always called to find out how we were doing, what was happening at the Chabad House and whether we needed anything to be sent from Eretz Yisroel. She listened to us as though this was her entire world at that moment. The Chabad House was her life’s project. She and her devoted husband, Shmulik, started it all from nothing and made it grow into a flourishing shlichus providing the Rebbe with endless nachas.
It was hard for me to acclimate and Mira faithfully stood by my side as though her situation was just fine; it wasn’t easy for her either. But she set aside her wants and desires and viewed anything having to do with the Chabad House as of the utmost importance. She stayed alone for days and nights, with her children, as her husband went to fundraise for their shlichus.
Mira entered the picture in the past five years. Until they came, the Chabad House in Delhi was located in a guest house for ten years in sub-conditions. In your wildest imagination you could not picture how hard it was.
Everyone dreams of a home, of furniture. Who doesn’t think of this? And yet, where did Mira go, four months after her wedding? To a room with nothing! Every shekel they brought in went towards the Chabad House with nothing left for them.
Whoever dreamed that the day would come when the Chabad House in Delhi would have its own building? As soon as Mira entered the picture, her life’s dream was realized and she was able to move to a new and (relatively) spacious building with a mikva and kosher restaurant.
What makes it especially painful is that when she finally had a home of her own, with a room for the children and even a place to hang her laundry, which made her so happy, she barely had time to enjoy it.
We arrived here during the initial stages of the new building and worked continuously on its development. We are here for half a year already and constantly, from the start, the feeling we had which energized us was how great it will be for Shmulik and Mira when they return after years of living in sub-human conditions. Finally!
Whenever I bought something, I thought of Mira. I knew she would enjoy it, when she returned.
I still have this feeling. Whenever I open the closet I think: Mira will be so happy to return to a furnished bedroom with an organized closet, to live like a human being. Then I remember: Mira is not coming back.
In my last phone conversation with her, two days before the tragedy, we spoke at length. I told her excitedly how we were preparing a surprise for her. I had decorated the walls of the restaurant floor with beautiful pictures and she was so excited and she laughingly said she wanted to see it already. We didn’t dream of what would happen, so soon.
People think that life in India is cheap, but the price of renting is close to what is paid in Tel Aviv. In general, all our activities demand endless money.
Mira gave up a comfortable life in Eretz Yisroel with three little children and sent the little bit of money that they got to the Chabad house.
In one of our difficult times, we reached the point where we had to borrow money from tourists for the Shabbos meals to buy tissues. Creditors came to ask for their money back. We called Shmulik, and Mira answered the phone. When she heard about the situation, she immediately forwent her family life and called a travel agent to buy a ticket for her husband so he could go on a fundraising trip.
To her everlasting credit let it be said that this took place so soon after a recent fundraising venture, but she always put the Chabad House at the top of her list of priorities and set herself and her needs completely aside.
Shmulik returned sooner than planned because of bad weather in the US and the cursed rockets caught him.
As I write this, I am reminded to take care of our plane tickets. We were supposed to return to Eretz Yisroel, changing places with Shmulik and Mira, but now our future is murky. We don’t know what will be with us.
Whoever was here when the tragedy occurred – tourists, businessmen, members of the local community – all came crying and mourning, feeling like one big family and wanting to know how they could help. We took the opportunity and designated a corner for good hachlatos in memory of Mira and for a refua shleima for her husband and children. Everyone felt the need for chizuk, to lean on something stable for support, and there was a big response.
EVEN THE INDIANS CAME TO CONSOLE US
The ones who surprised me the most were the local Indians who came to console us, to share in the sorrow. A man by the name of Biji, an electrician, came and sobbed like a child. I tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t deal with the bad news and he fled. After a few hours he returned and spoke about Mira, that she was such a sensitive woman, how she always smiled at him and asked how he was and offered him a cup of water.
Then came Dhrampa, one of the security policemen who are stationed here ever since the attack in Bombay for the past four years. With tears pouring down his face, he couldn’t believe the news.
One by one, they all came. Prins, the travel agent; Aji, the manager of the guest house; Abi and Ransi who sell fabric on the street, and others.
I’ll never forget the reaction of Gopal, who has been working in the Chabad House now for three years, and his shocked face that expressed his inability to digest the terrible news. “What?!” he screamed. “Mira?!”
It is truly hard to believe. Yes. Mira.
It is so painful that it seems like it will never pass. The picture of Mira here on the wall affects people deeply. People come in and ask questions. Tourists, who started their trip when Shmulik and Mira were here, came back and saw us and listened and couldn’t believe it. They all took part, sharing the pain. We can’t put the pieces back together.
CONTINUING MIRA’S WORK
The Rebbe says in the D’var Malchus of Tazria-Metzora: We find it difficult to live Geula because we are galus-people. We were born into galus and unfortunately we got used to terrible tragedies. So yes, we are shocked at the news, it is hard and painful, but we have learned to move on.
This time it cannot happen! We cannot continue our normal routines without making a positive commitment. Each of us must add more light because Mira deserves it! And this is what we can do in her merit.
And yes, every article or personal column like this ends with a request for help, donations. Our galus mindset got used to this too, but this time we cannot go on without making a donation because Mira deserves it for being moser nefesh for the Chabad House in Delhi.
We will guarantee that the work at the Chabad House will continue and in a bigger way than before.
The pain is still fresh. It is still hard to get a proper perspective on her luminous personality, and it is about her that the verse says, “Strength and glory are her raiment and she laughs at the final day.”
The world stands in silent respect and bows before her fresh grave.
May we meet her again today, with the Geula.
By Shaindy Bernstein, shlucha to Cochin, India
I first met Mira in Beis Chana High School in Yerushalayim. I remember being impressed by her vast knowledge and her Chassidishe chayus. I was amazed by her seriousness and the depth with which she approached every inyan in Chassidus, every story, sicha and maamer. I remember her davening with hisbonenus and with avoda, concepts that we assume are reserved for Tomchei T’mimim. These are things that are far from the world of the average Bas Chabad.
Girls from school did not believe she did not come from a Lubavitcher home, that there was a time when she said her Chitas under the blanket so no one would know. When she won the raffle to go to the Rebbe, everyone said, “Mira deserves it!”
Our relationship deepened when she went on shlichus and we became close. When we passed through Delhi on our way to Cochin, Mira and her husband were in Eretz Yisroel and they let us stay in their “home.” When I saw how she lived, I was shocked. Their home consisted of one room in a hotel without a kitchen! She, her husband and her baby at the time, Yosef Yitzchok, lived in this little room with furniture that included beds and chairs. It is hard to believe that a couple lived like this.
Mira was a model of bittul of the shliach to the meshaleiach and of absolute kabbalas ol. Mira was very shy by nature, but when she realized that the Rebbe wanted her to be involved in hafatza she decided to work on herself and change. Whenever she went on mivtzaim and asked a stranger whether she would like to light Shabbos candles, she was overcoming her reticent personality. It is not easy to change one’s basic nature, but when Mira saw the need, she just did it. The same was true for her decision to go to India with her husband. She did the right thing because it needed to be done, without considering what was comfortable and convenient for her.
THE TOURISTS WERE IMPRESSED BY HER
I remember the tourists talking with her and being so impressed. Her refinement and bashfulness served to highlight her strength, bitachon and faith in what the Rebbe said. I think that the power that she radiated came from the fact that she attained everything on her own, that she really worked on it! Even when religious girls asked her questions about the Besuras Ha’Geula and the Goel, she answered with fire and confidence.
A few days after the tragedy, a few of us shluchos in the Far East met to farbreng. Each of us told things we learned from and saw in Mira. The first thing that stood out in our conversation was her mesirus nefesh, which filled her shlichus, under the hardest of conditions. Her constant motto was: It needs to be done, so we do it.
They all said, “Although we are also shluchos in backward primitive India, Delhi is the hardest, most challenging of all!” All were in agreement that compared to Delhi their place of shlichus was a treat (that is with the filth, the stench and all the rest).
SIMPLY, WITHOUT COMPLAINTS
Mira did not act like a martyr. She did not complain and did not seek to be admired. Within all the chaos and filth in the Main Bazaar, she worked hard to raise Chassidishe children and to do her shlichus. Without schools, without family, without a community, with water stoppages and power outages, in the heat and the cold, she persevered. Even when other shluchos expressed their amazement, she reacted with equanimity.
Until last year, she did not even have a normal place to live and she crowded into a room of the guest house, for three years! The Chabad House in those days was also small and crowded, and the neighborhood was filthy and crowded with streets teeming with traffic, tourists and rickshaws, bicycles and cows. It was not at all a suitable place for young children to be. The only place she could go to air out with the children was the municipal park.
A shlucha related that a while back, Mira happily told her about how thrilled she was to finally move to her own home with a place where she could hang the laundry. Tears came to my eyes, said the shlucha, because she was happy about having a place to hang her laundry. She lived there with her children and the children of another family or two, of shluchim who were traveling, and Mira was happy. Things that other people complain about were reasons for Mira to be thankful.
SHLICHUS – NOT AT THE CHILDREN’S EXPENSE
Another special thing about Mira which came up at the farbrengen was her approach to chinuch. All shluchos in India and places like it have to deal with the challenges of chinuch, maintaining a routine and providing children with everything they need. This responsibility comes along with the shlichus work.
To Mira, her children were always top priority. Nothing prevented her from providing her children with a pure, Jewish chinuch. She once said to me, “In the evening when the tourists come, I need to be with the children and put them to sleep.” I remember her keeping her children occupied with a daily routine: Davening, tz’daka, breakfast. Everything was done with explanations and very pleasantly. I remember how impressed I was by her ability to create the atmosphere of a nursery school where one child, her son, learned.
To be alone in the Main Bazaar without anyone to help you is indescribable mesirus nefesh, but Mira said, “To let someone else care for the children? Who – the tourists? To let a girl who is not 100% suitable? I prefer being alone with three children so they see proper Chassidishe role models without compromises.” She always spoke to her children in Yiddish. The sight of an authentic Yiddishe Mama speaking to her children in the language of our Rebbeim touched the hearts of the tourists deeply. I once complimented her on the children’s clothing and with her characteristic guilelessness, she said: It’s important to me that the children look well cared for because the tourists look at them and it affects their attitude towards Judaism.
That was the purpose of the clothing that Mira bought for them, to make a Kiddush Hashem!
She was utterly devoted to whatever she believed in: to the chinuch of her children, to the Rebbe, to doing it 100%. Beyond that, the shlichus itself was a shlichus of nonstop giving of oneself. In that location, one doesn’t even have the privilege of giving shiurim and learning with a chavrusa. One doesn’t have the opportunity to get to know people. Delhi is a way station, where the travelers land and take off. Most of the tourists are not interested in staying there. People come and go. Often, on their return, tourists don’t have the patience and state of mind to sit down. As a shlucha, I see this as being very difficult because in Cochin also, tourists don’t tarry. We can’t create a significant relationship with them, and yet we need to smile at everyone and give them all attention.
HELPING OTHER SHLUCHIM
Delhi is also a way station for shluchim. Every couple who comes to India stays with them. Mira hosted and guided shluchos in how to manage, where to buy clothes, and more. Mira and her husband would prepare food and arrange for a discounted rate in the guest house. Every time we passed through Delhi on our way to Cochin, we left there with a feeling of the greatest admiration for someone who could survive in a place like this.
One of the challenges of a shlichus like this is the frequent traveling every year, the need to switch off and get used to being in India and then again back in Eretz Yisroel. Another hardship is sending your husband to fundraise and to be alone. Recently, Shmulik traveled to raise funds and Mira was left alone with her three little ones. She was moser nefesh on “vacation.” One of the shluchos said that when they were in Eretz Yisroel, she asked Mira to pick up her child from nursery which Mira did for a few days. It was only afterward that the shlucha realized how much effort Mira put in to help her friend while she was alone in Eretz Yisroel.
Mira’s pure faith in the Rebbe MH”M and the path of Chabad affected whoever knew her. Her father (a Sadigerer Chassid) said he remembers the couple, with the children and suitcases, sitting with their eyes closing from exhaustion … and saying Chitas, and he concluded, “I know this was her path. Continue in her path and may Hashem give you strength!”