My father-in-law’s brother, our Uncle Nota ztz”l, was a force to be reckoned with. Rav Nota Schiller was a leader of the teshuvah movement, a talmid chacham. An orator. A poet. A husband, father, and grandfather. An uncle. And a brother. When my father-in-law heard that his brother was ill, he jumped onto a plane and didn’t leave his side until it was all over.

And this wasn’t the first time my mother-in-law’s sister, Tante Rivky, was on her deathbed. The last time, Mommy brought her back to life. You don’t argue with Mommy — if Mommy says that someone needs to live, well then, they pull through. But Mommy wasn’t here this time. And Rivky slipped away before she could arrive.

My husband tells me that ever since he can remember, Rivky was renowned for her hamantaschen. She’d bake them by the dozen and box them up, shipping them to friends and family, even oceans away. In this way, she could transform her love into something tangible, something you could hold in your hands and breathe in when distances seemed too far to span.

My husband paints me a word picture: soft dough that broke into flakes when you bit into it, rich homemade jam filling, both tart and sweet.

Bittersweet, some would say. And months later, my father-in-law sent me a Google album of our weeks together, before and after the shivahs, labeled just that. “Bittersweet.”

It’s been just one year since that Purim, and the world is not the same. Wars have been fought, won, lost. Captives set free, those high up have tumbled down and those on the bottom have been raised up. We witnessed miracles with our own eyes on a daily basis.

Yet when you think about it, not much has changed in the thousands of years since Haman sweet-talked Achashveirosh’s ring off his finger. We are once again in a galus, our redemption day unknown and uncalculated.  Decrees and threats of destruction hang over us.

And like then, venahafoch hu. Notions and perceptions we thought we could bank on have crumbled in our hands, like flaky dough, and friends have been found in unlikely places. Things are flipped. Where once there was darkness, there is now light.

Mourners get up from the ground, knees creaking, broken hearts bound together. They sit on chairs to partake in a seudas mitzvah.

The tears of earlier that day are dried as they sing, Im matzasi chein be’einecha… HaMelech.

The world has changed, but nothing has changed.

We still plead with our Creator that we find favor in His eyes, and that He makes the ultimate flip soon, and speedily, in our days.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 983)