A WAKE UP CALL TO THE COMMUNITY What words of comfort can one give in such an unfathomable tragedy? (Photo: Shloimi Cohen)

Standing outside the Feldman shivah house in Beitar Illit last week friends and neighbors were nervous and apprehensive — what words of comfort can one give in such an unfathomable tragedy? How do you acknowledge a grieving father who by his own admission of having a “memory blackout” forgot that his one-year-old daughter was still in the back seat of a steaming hot car — only to remember an hour later when it was too late when the malach hamaves decreed to don the cloak of “angel of forgetfulness ” had already struck?

Reb Yedidya Feldman a pillar of the Breslov kehillah in Beitar and proprietor of the town’s upscale fine-wine store told Mishpacha during the shivah that not a minute goes by when he’s not battling the overpowering forces of pain and guilt. “There’s this constant war going on between the head and the heart between the emotions and the seichel ” he confesses. “The heart wants to pull you into that pit of black infinite guilt while the brain understands that such a thing could happen to anyone. The most painful thing was after the funeral when I saw people’s reactions — ‘You’re a murderer ’ and the like. It was a decree from Shamayim that this tragedy should happen through my own hand — I couldn’t have prevented it. It was as if part of my brain had a blackout.”

Reb Yedidya is acutely aware of those who point blame at parents — caring loving people who would never willingly do anything to hurt their child — who’ve forgotten their own children in vehicles. “It’s like a knife in my raw flesh” he says explaining that our busy lives and brain overload cause this phenomenon especially when routine has been changed. Character assassination he says is not going to make the plague go away. Still he says he’s sure there is some reason this horror happened to him.

He tries to make sense out of what happened Friday morning two weeks ago after putting Chana Rina a”h — the princess of the family after three boys — in her car seat.

“I never took Chani to the babysitter on Fridays as my wife never works on Fridays but that day she was called in. Then when the babysitter saw that she hadn’t come she called — but dialed the wrong number.”

According to Avital Appel of the child safety nonprofit Beterem — Safe Kids Israel new research indicates that indeed the phenomenon of forgetting children in cars is related to the way our brains are wired. We multitask on autopilot when it comes to routine familiar activities but when we’re tasked with something new our overloaded brains don’t always remember. “What US researchers discovered ” she told Mishpacha “is that in almost all of these cases there was a difference from the routine — like the parent driving wasn’t usually the one to take the child.”

Chana Rina Feldman a”h