Rivka

This morning I was saddened to read the news that Rivka bat Yishaya, who wrote a blog called cofffee and chemo, passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer.
I had just discovered her blog this week and wrote a post about how inspiring she was in her determination to live.

A few days ago I received an email with a thought on the Parsha from Rabbi Eli Mansour in which he spoke about Sarah's 127 years and the importance of not squandering moments in vain pursuits. Click here to read the devar Torah.
Rivka bat Yishaya lived life to the fullest and inspired us with her not giving in to despair.
In this week's parsha, Isaac lost the most important woman in his life, namely his mother, but he was consoled upon marrying Rivka. In spite of setbacks, life goes on.
A woman who lost her husband in a car accident a number of years ago spoke this week about the words, in the mishna (Ta’anit 26b) "Mi-she-nichnas Av me-ma'atin be-simcha" - with the arrival of the month of Av, one minimizes joy.
She heard a different explanation of those words. One minimizes the mourning with simcha (happiness.) She said that her children taught her the meaning of that explanation.
When someone loses a loved one, he can say, woe is me, look what I had - what a terrible loss. Alternatively, one can say, look what I had - how fortunate I was to have what I had. By discussing their thoughts about their father, her children had shown her that one could look back with happiness and be thankful for having had such a great personality in their lives.
To the relatives of Rivka, may you find solace in the way she lived her life and may you be comforted comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Those of us who put off cancer screening tests, make an appointment to get checked soon. I will never forget sitting in a gynecologist's office and seeing an ashen faced woman emerge from the doctor's office. She had been given some bad news after being tested for some sort of cancer.
"I put off going to the doctor for ten years," she announced in a broken voice to the women in the waiting room. All of us were thinking, "if she had only scheduled an appointment sooner."