Summoned to bring a double sacrifice, Devory Paley shared her bedrock faith with an entire nation

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Flash90, Family archives

The newly renovated apartment on 41 Rechov Mintz in Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood is a testament that life can move on even in the shadow of overwhelming tragedy.

For these walls witnessed both unimaginable pain, and Divinely endowed reserves of strength and courage to find shards of light even in the darkest places.

It’s the home of Rabbi Avraham Noach and Devory Paley, a quiet, unassuming couple suddenly flung into the Jewish spotlight last February when their two little boys were murdered by a terrorist on Erev Shabbos while waiting for a bus to a family simchah. Five-year-old Yaakov Yisrael was killed instantly and seven-year-old Asher Menachem (Ushi) died a few hours later, while Reb Avraham Noach, his lower body crushed and with a traumatic head injury, was rushed unconscious to Hadassah’s ICU. Shlomo Alter Lederman, a young chassid married just five months, was also killed in the ramming attack.

Today, in what can only be called a miraculous recovery, Reb Avraham Noach, a longtime avreich, has returned to kollel standing on his own two feet, while Devory is trying to unpack the boxes stacked against the wall in her freshly expanded living room (most of them filled with seforim, but some also holding notebooks, pictures, letters, and gifts from people around the world she’d never even met before). In the background there’s the cooing of a smiley six-month old baby named Yonatan Refael, born just two days after the shloshim of their murdered sons.

Good people helped them renovate their apartment so it would be wheelchair-accessible when the prognosis for Reb Avraham Noach looked grim, but even though they no longer need a ramp, Devory sees her enlarged walls and spanking new floor tiles as a metaphor for her own life. Through the fog of tragedy there can be sun; through searing pain there can also be profound meaning, connection, healing — and even joy.

During the shivah, as the cameras clicked and the press and video teams crowded her once-private space, Devory emerged as a tower of strength for a grieving public who drew their own measure of comfort from her rock-solid, unwavering faith. While microphones were being pushed at her, and public figures (including Bibi and Sarah Netanyahu) along with their security details arrived for shivah visits, Devory — in an advanced stage of pregnancy and flanked by six traumatized children — suddenly found another voice: The public wanted — needed — to hear words of emunah, to see that a Jew doesn’t break in the face of the most excruciating decrees. That there is so much we don’t understand, yet we trust in our loving Father who has the plans all worked out.

And she stepped up to the plate.