The first morning after Rivka buried her mother, the world seemed offensively bright. The sun streamed through the curtains as if nothing had changed, as if a piece of her heart hadn’t been ripped out and buried beneath the earth. She sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea gone cold, her fingers tracing the rim, over and over.
The house breathed with memories. The soft thud of her mother's slippers down the hall. The way she hummed Shabbat songs even on Tuesdays. Rivka pressed her fists against her chest. Everything felt hollow, as though her own soul had gone vacant.
When she finally went outside, it was more from force than desire. She walked the old footpath to the vineyard her mother used to tend, the one her grandmother had once nurtured too. It was early winter, and the vines were stripped bare, black fingers clawing at the pale sky.
"What am I doing?" she whispered into the empty wind. There was no answer, no comforting voice, no gentle hand. Just the relentless ache.
She sank down on a stone at the edge of the field, hiding her face in her hands. Somewhere, back when life had felt safe, she remembered her mother quoting a verse from the prophets — something about G-d giving beauty for ashes, a spirit of joy instead of despair. It seemed impossible now. Beauty had died with her mother; joy was a foreign language she no longer spoke.
Minutes or hours later—Rivka wasn't sure—a tiny movement caught her eye. She blinked and saw it: a lone, stubborn crocus, poking through the brittle winter soil at the base of a gnarled vine. Pale purple, fragile, shivering in the cold. It shouldn't have been blooming yet. It shouldn't have survived at all.
Rivka stared at it, half-angry. "How dare you?" she hissed under her breath. "How dare you be alive when she isn't?"
But even as the words tore from her, something loosened inside her chest. Her fury ebbed into exhaustion, then softened into a sorrowful wonder. The little flower nodded in the breeze, defiant and delicate. It had pushed through cold dirt, fought through the barren soil, and still chosen to bloom.
Tears spilled down Rivka’s cheeks, hot and relentless, but not sharp like before. She thought of another verse—this one from the Psalms: HaShem is close to the brokenhearted. For so long, she had feared she was alone in her grief, adrift without anchor or compass. But sitting there, before a single trembling bloom, she felt it: a hand unseen, a whisper across her soul. She hadn't been abandoned. She was cradled, even in her breaking.
Rivka reached out with a trembling hand and brushed her fingers against the flower’s stem. The touch was feather-light, yet something in her — something deep and battered — stirred.
Slowly, she stood. The vineyard was still stripped and skeletal; her grief was still real, still raw. But tucked into the bitter soil was a promise that life was never truly conquered, that hope could root itself even among ashes.
She would come back tomorrow. Perhaps with seeds. Perhaps just to sit. Perhaps just to remember.
The ache didn’t vanish. But it softened into something she could carry. G-d was not a rescuer from sorrow — He was the presence within it, the comfort that grew from the same cracked ground where tears had fallen.
Rivka walked home, sunlight warming her shoulders. The doors of her heart, once slammed shut in pain, nudged open by the smallest, wildest tender thing: hope.
—
Torah and Tanakh References Supporting the Story:
The first morning after Rivka buried her mother, the world seemed offensively bright. The sun streamed through the curtains as if nothing had changed, as if a piece of her heart hadn’t been ripped out and buried beneath the earth. She sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea gone cold, her fingers tracing the rim, over and over.
The house breathed with memories. The soft thud of her mother's slippers down the hall. The way she hummed Shabbat songs even on Tuesdays. Rivka pressed her fists against her chest. Everything felt hollow, as though her own soul had gone vacant.
When she finally went outside, it was more from force than desire. She walked the old footpath to the vineyard her mother used to tend, the one her grandmother had once nurtured too. It was early winter, and the vines were stripped bare, black fingers clawing at the pale sky.
"What am I doing?" she whispered into the empty wind. There was no answer, no comforting voice, no gentle hand. Just the relentless ache.
She sank down on a stone at the edge of the field, hiding her face in her hands. Somewhere, back when life had felt safe, she remembered her mother quoting a verse from the prophets — something about G-d giving beauty for ashes, a spirit of joy instead of despair. It seemed impossible now. Beauty had died with her mother; joy was a foreign language she no longer spoke.
Minutes or hours later—Rivka wasn't sure—a tiny movement caught her eye. She blinked and saw it: a lone, stubborn crocus, poking through the brittle winter soil at the base of a gnarled vine. Pale purple, fragile, shivering in the cold. It shouldn't have been blooming yet. It shouldn't have survived at all.
Rivka stared at it, half-angry. "How dare you?" she hissed under her breath. "How dare you be alive when she isn't?"
But even as the words tore from her, something loosened inside her chest. Her fury ebbed into exhaustion, then softened into a sorrowful wonder. The little flower nodded in the breeze, defiant and delicate. It had pushed through cold dirt, fought through the barren soil, and still chosen to bloom.
Tears spilled down Rivka’s cheeks, hot and relentless, but not sharp like before. She thought of another verse—this one from the Psalms: HaShem is close to the brokenhearted. For so long, she had feared she was alone in her grief, adrift without anchor or compass. But sitting there, before a single trembling bloom, she felt it: a hand unseen, a whisper across her soul. She hadn't been abandoned. She was cradled, even in her breaking.
Rivka reached out with a trembling hand and brushed her fingers against the flower’s stem. The touch was feather-light, yet something in her — something deep and battered — stirred.
Slowly, she stood. The vineyard was still stripped and skeletal; her grief was still real, still raw. But tucked into the bitter soil was a promise that life was never truly conquered, that hope could root itself even among ashes.
She would come back tomorrow. Perhaps with seeds. Perhaps just to sit. Perhaps just to remember.
The ache didn’t vanish. But it softened into something she could carry. G-d was not a rescuer from sorrow — He was the presence within it, the comfort that grew from the same cracked ground where tears had fallen.
Rivka walked home, sunlight warming her shoulders. The doors of her heart, once slammed shut in pain, nudged open by the smallest, wildest tender thing: hope.
—
Torah and Tanakh References Supporting the Story:
