Mrs. Sandra Katz saw art, love, and faith everywhere. Rabbi Doniel Katz reflects on his mother’s unique gifts

Does the “Elevation Project” ring a bell? For the last decade, Rabbi Doniel Katz’s visionary initiative — a blend of kabbalistic, chassidic, mussar, and Talmudic perspectives on the human psyche, tikkun hamiddos and dveikus — has uplifted international audiences from all walks of life. 

Recently, his mother, Mrs. Sandra Katz a”h, the woman who first set him on his creative journey, passed away in Australia after a short illness. She was a woman of great depth and kindness, with an eye for the spiritual within the physical, for the wondrous within the mundane. It was this talent that inspired her unique and beautiful artwork: figures crafted exclusively from flower petals.

Touching the Next World

So much of the best of who I am is from her; my heart is her heart, my soul is her soul:

When my mum was first diagnosed with cancer, only seven weeks before her passing, she told me she was less afraid of cancer and death than of what the final stage of her life was likely to involve — being trapped in a hospital, enduring brutal medical treatments, and losing her autonomy.

While her true nature was one of remarkable calm and serenity, she rapidly descended into a state of panic, despite my doing all I could for her to the point of depletion. It broke my heart. (Due to the Covid restrictions affecting travel and entry to Australia, I was unable to be with her for her final weeks, but we were in frequent contact by phone and Zoom).

Then, suddenly, when it seemed things couldn’t get any darker, Mum’s consciousness suddenly settled, opened, and expanded, as if she was transitioning to a Divine awareness of the Next World while still embodied in this one. She kept telling me that nothing physical in This World mattered to her anymore.

During my final extended conversation with her, the day before she passed away, she reflected on her life with joy and bliss, seeing only the good in everything. She told me again and again, “Everything was only good and a blessing, even the hardest moments — everything was only Hashem.”

In that state, she was able to look into the hearts of the people who’d caused her the most pain and view them with nothing but love, understanding, and forgiveness. She didn’t need a thing; everything was light and good — even right there in the hospital, surrounded by the very same doctors and machines that had caused her panic attacks only days before.

I quoted her some teachings from the Zohar and Chazal, explaining to her what she could expect to happen once her soul transitioned to the Next World. She responded with a joyful heart and deep resonance, “I know, I know, yes, yes, how wonderful. I see it and feel it already. I know.”

I believe my mother merited this because seeing the good and Divine in all things was something she worked on all her life. She went through some very challenging times. But she always, always wanted to see the good, and find the good, in people, things, and situations. The more she became religious in the last 20 years of her life, the more she would declare it all to be Hashem — until, in the last days of her life, He opened her eyes, and that’s actually all she saw.