Noah’s Father Puts On Tefillin, Begins Painful Shiva

The Pozner family has begun a most painful and teary shiva, with Noah’s father Lenny putting on tefillin while he and his wife find consolation in the Jewish faith.

Before meeting with President Barack Obama, Lenny Pozner was guided by Connecticut Chabad Rabbi Yisrael Deren to put on tefillin, the phylacteries worn by Jewish men during weekday morning prayers. If one did not do so in the morning prayer, he puts on tefillin later in the day.

 

The Pozner family are members of the Temple Adath Israel in Newtown, Conn., which was founded 93 years ago as an Orthodox synagogue. It was founded by Jewish immigrant farmers but evolved into a Conservative synagogue after many congregants left.

Adath Israel Rabbi Shaul Praver has been left with the task of comforting the bereaved Pozners, whose six-year-old son Noah was one of 26 victims, 20 of them children, gunned down in a massacre whose motives probably never well be known. The murderer killed himself after shooting dead his mother and the victims at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Rabbi Praver explained to Noah’s mother, Veronique, the Jewish principle that Noah’s soul, like all others, is eternal even if his physical body is no longer alive.

“She found a lot of consolation in the idea that death doesn’t really exist — it’s just a transformation because we all come from G-d and everything in the world is from G-d,” said the rabbi, quoted in The New York Times.

“Noah wasn’t lost.”

His twin sister survived the horrid murders in a nearby classroom.