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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Anah el Nah: Jonah Adels

My main memory of Jonah Adels, who passed away last week due to injuries sustained in a tragic car accident, was that he planted the beginnings of a fruit orchard in Putnam County, New York..

Jonah worked at Concealed Light's camp.  Neither of us actually knew his name until recently.  But we totally "knew" him.  He seemed so sweet and kind.  I don't know why things like this happen, but here is a video that some of Jonah's friends put together a few months ago when they were praying for his healing.




The chant in this video is "anah el nah refah na la":  Answer us, please, God, heal us please, God.  I have never heard this particular melody of this classic Jewish prayer but it is so amazingly beautiful.  When I played it today for Concealed Light she said, "oh, yes, we sing that at camp."  Like it was just so familiar to her.   Then she was like, "wait?  The video is 14 minutes?  We don't sing it that long at camp."

I am so glad to learn that she knows this melody.  It took Jonah's accident for me to learn that my daughter knows a most gorgeous melody to this important tefilah.

Concealed Light saw some of the photos in the video and recognized Jonah.  "Oh, yeah I know him."  Sadness with a mama and her 10 year old daughter.

She didn't know what the additional images in the video were doing there, but I told her they are there to help people get to a place of healing through prayer.  Something like that.  It's hard.

Jonah planted a fruit orchard that will continue for years to come.  What bittersweetness.  All is meant to be.  Children at Concealed Light's camp will bear Jonah's fruit.  How do things like this happen?

From what I was told, Jonah's car accident happened because his car was trying to avoid hitting an animal in the road.  They didn't hit the animal but their own car swerved and crashed.  What kindness, what bittersweet kindness.

It was Rebbe Nachman's yahrtzeit a few weeks ago during Sukkot when  I learned that Jonah was journeying from this world into the next.  His friends were coming that exact shabbes to gather at a friend's home where a woman was about to bring a new life into the world.  I want to believe that Rebbe Nachman was there, holding Jonah by the hand, dancing and rejoicing with him in all that he contributed to the world, and leading him personally into the next world.

Baruch Dayan haEmet.

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