Hadas Loewenstern’s Ultimate Revenge

On December 13^th, the Israeli army sent a tank to rescue several soldiers who were wounded in southern Gaza. Hamas hit the tank with an anti-tank guided missile. Master Sgt. (res.) Rabbi Elisha Loewenstern, a 38-year-old American-Israeli reservist, was killed. He left behind his wife Hadas and their six children, as well as his parents and siblings.

Though devastated by her husband’s death, Hadas Loewenstern is determined to give her children the best life possible. In a video tribute to her late husband, Hadas said, “We plan on living such a wonderful life that the bad guys will never merit to live… This is true victory in my eyes.” Hadas’s strength and determination touched people around the world. Those who came to comfort her felt strengthened in her presence.

Exploring Her Jewish Identity

Hadas grew up in Netanya, Israel, in a warm, non-religious family. She is the ninth generation of her family to live in Israel. As a young adult, she got involved in politics and human rights activism. At age 24, while serving in the IDF, Hadas encountered a religious Jew for the first time.

“We got into a big fight,” Hadas says. “I thought that he belonged to the past. I thought he was the kind of Jew that we don’t need anymore.”

The encounter led Hadas to ask herself some serious questions she had never considered. “What does it mean to be Jewish? What are my values as a Jew? Why do we have so many enemies? Why do they hate us so much?”

In search of answers, Hadas began exploring her Jewish heritage. She eventually left the army and spent three years studying in a post-high school institution of Torah learning for women. Impressed with the profound wisdom she discovered in Judaism and surrounded by inspiring role models, she decided, “I don’t want to just learn Torah; I want to live Torah.”

When Hadas first met her future husband, she experienced “a huge culture shock.” Not only did he grow up in a religious family, but he was American who spoke English at home and liked American snacks. Elisha had come to Israel from New Jersey at age 8, together with his parents, Tzvi and Sharon Loewenstern, and his siblings. He grew up among other English speakers in Beit Shemesh. Hadas was skeptical that they would have anything in common, but she was immediately impressed with Elisha’s interpersonal qualities.

On the first date, Elisha barely spoke. It took Hadas some time to realize that it wasn’t because he had nothing to say. Elisha was simply more interested in listening to others than speaking about himself. As Hadas learned over their 13-year-long marriage, he was an amazing listener.

As she got to know him better, their cultural differences felt insignificant. Within a few months, they were married. And with time, Hadas gained a special appreciation of Americans who move to Israel. “Now I understand how hard it is to make aliyah,” she says.

Hadas and Elisha had six children. Their oldest son is 12 and getting ready for his Bar Mitzvah. Their youngest is not even a year old.

A Good Man

Elisha was a wonderful husband and father, kind, caring, and very honest. “Such a good man,” says Hadas. “It showed in the little things. He would always let me sleep on Shabbat afternoons. After a Shabbat meal, he would always compliment the cook, but he didn’t just say, ‘the food was good.’ He would say, ‘The chicken was very good.’ Very specific. ‘Your apple crumble is the best apple crumble I’ve ever eaten.’ He wasn’t just saying it to be polite. He truly noticed and paid attention to other people and to what was going on in their lives. When he would meet someone on the street, he wouldn’t just politely ask, ‘How are you?’ He would ask about specific things, like, ‘How was your test last week?’ or ‘How is your sister who just had surgery?’ He would really pay attention, and you could feel that he really cares.”

Elisha cultivated a positive atmosphere in the home. He studied Torah with his children, conveying his own love for Judaism to them. Whenever a child reached a milestone, such as finishing a tractate of Talmud, Elisha would make him or her a special certificate of award, showering the child with compliments and words of appreciation. They would hang the certificate on the wall, for the whole family to see, and make a special party for the child.

“This was his thing, to compliment and to motivate them to learn,” says Hadas in an exclusive interview with Aish.com. “This is something I will really miss.”

Living Life to the Fullest

For Hadas, the loss of her husband is enormous, yet she manages not only to stay positive but to inspire others.

“Nobody stays in this world for more than 120 years. The question is: how did you live in the time that was allotted to you? I look at Elisha and I say to myself, he passed the test with flying colors. He lived an exemplary life. And this also gives me comfort, because I know that God was very happy with the way Elisha lived.”

Hadas has her difficult moments, but she doesn’t let them detract from her sense of purpose. “If I only focused on my grief, and focus on the fact that my husband and the father of my six children – my youngest is not even a year old – is gone – this is insane! That’s not something normal, for a 40-year-old woman to be left a widow with six kids. If I only think about how I have to go through all the Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs by myself, and how I have to marry off six kids, and how I will manage – if I would think just about that, I would probably become a very sad woman. But when I focus on what I can give, on what my mission is, on what God wants me to do right now, it gives me strength. This is how I cope. If I can see the purpose, then it will give me a reason to wake up tomorrow morning and make sandwiches for my six kids.”

On a Mission

How is Hadas able to see beyond her grief and her immediate difficulties? She says that when she first began learning about Judaism in depth, she understood that “Torah is all about not thinking about yourself, not putting yourself in the center, but putting God in the center, listening to Him, doing what He wants you to do.” This is the perspective that Hadas has lived with for many years.

Hadas compares life to a video game, where you go from one challenge to another, collecting prizes along the way, throughout your childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. “You meet the person you are going to marry, and you think you know why you are marrying him, and you think you know what kind of family you will have, and you think you know many things. But God has this big plan.” One day, your role in this plan is revealed to you, and “the minute it comes, you have a choice.”

Hadas quotes the words of Mordecai to Queen Esther, “If you keep silent at such a time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from a different place.” She adds, “If it won’t be you, it will be someone else. God wants to give this message to the world, and it’s really not about me. I mean, it is about me in the sense that I really worked hard my entire life to be a good person, to be someone who looks at the bright side of life – not as a cliché, but as something very hard, something to work on and to practice: looking at the bright side and seeing God’s kindness and how everything He gives you is a gift. Both Elisha and I worked very hard to become the people we became.”

Hadas explains that her husband was involved in introspection every single day. “I have so many of his notes that he wrote to himself: ‘I want to be a better person,’ ‘I want to be a friendlier neighbor,’ ‘I want to speak in a calm voice.’ Over 20 years of working on himself. It’s hard work! It’s not something that just happened. It’s something we’ve been working on our entire lives.”

Now Hadas is on a mission to share her husband’s legacy with the world. “God decided that Elisha should live in this world for 38 years. He could have died in any other way, like in a car accident, and nobody would have heard about him. I really feel that because of his special qualities and beautiful personality, God wanted the world to know about him. This is my mission. Nothing can bring Elisha back, but if I talk about him all day long then he is here. And if millions of people know who he was, then I have a little more of Elisha here in the world.”

Thank You, God

Hadas makes a conscious effort to focus on what she is grateful for rather than what she is missing. “Elisha had a heart of gold. He was the best man I knew. And I am so privileged to have been his wife for almost 13 years. I have so much to be grateful for! I know that the story ‘ended’ not the way I would have imagined, but that won’t stop me from saying thank you for what we had. Every time I want to break down and feel bitter, I say to myself, ‘Listen, you have six kids – say thank you!’ Next to my husband in the military cemetery are buried so many young men, 19 or 20 years old, who weren’t married and didn’t have children. So many people would give anything to have just one child, and I have six – say thank you! Elisha left me with so much – say thank you! And when I start saying thank you, it makes it easier, because I’m not only focusing on what I don’t have anymore; I’m focusing on what I do have, and I have a lot!”

Hadas’s mission isn’t easy, but she chooses to undertake it with her head held high. While Hadas is willing to work hard, she is also willing to accept help from family, friends, and caring community members.

Accepting Help

“I am getting so much help,” she says. “People are coming all the time and helping with laundry, dishes, grocery shopping. You need a lot of humility to get help. My husband and I helped a lot of people in our lives, and now it’s my turn to be helped. God willing, there will come a time when I’ll be the one who helps. Being humble, understanding that you really need help, and allowing people to help you and not feeling embarrassed is also something that helps me. There is no way I could do everything on my own. This is part of life – you get some, you give some. Acts of kindness take two sides – the one who gives and the one who receives. If no one was ever in need, there would be no kindness. So I tell myself that I’m still participating in acts of kindness – just on the receiving side, not on the giving side.

“And that is something women need to know – they don’t need to cope on their own. Ask for help! Even if you feel that this war is too much for you and you need mental health help, you need someone to listen to you because you’re going out of your mind – get all the help you need! Don’t be proud.”

In addition to being a mother, Hadas is a teacher and a public speaker. Even though she didn’t choose her circumstances, she chooses to use them to make a difference in the world. “I understand that I don’t understand. I understand that God has His own plan. And this is my deal with Him: You give me the strength, and I will try to make the entire Jewish world love You more, believe in You more. And this is what keeps me alive.”