The Rev Family

One of my very good friends and sixth cousin is a guy called Tom Rev.

He made Aliya from Australia and we have been very much in tandem with each other.

When I lived in Israel, I used to go every week to his home for supper or to watch football. I also got to know his wife Susan and his kids; Naomi, who is married to Binny, Rebecca who is married to Boaz, and Daniel who is married to Becky. But one son of his sons, I had never met in person but had heard a lot about him. You see Tom had a son called Jonathan, who passed away at a young age.

Jonathan was an aspiring young, man married to Hila. He was living in New York and he had a promising career ahead of him when he was diagnosed with cancer and became ill.

Unfortunately, he died and was buried in Har Menuchot cemetery in Jerusalem. This week was the anniversary of his death and just after the ceremony that was held by the grave, Tom called me and said you have to hear this story:

When Jono was ill in New York, Tom flew over from Sydney to be with him. A rabbi who Tom knew heard about the situation and sent an acquaintance to see if he can help Tom. This acquaintance came to Tom and offered to take him to see Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, a great rabbi, for a blessing.

Tom said no and preferred to stay at the hospital with his son.

This week, years later, Toms's neighbour was praying at a synagogue at the complex where they live and saw a stranger come in and went to greet him. The man was from New York and upon hearing the neighbour's Australian accent, he asked him, "Do you know a Tom Rev?"

When he heard that Tom and Susan had made aliya and were living in the complex, he came and knocked on their door.

It was the acquaintance of the rabbi who had come to the hospital room!

That would have been a nice story but that wasn't the end of it. ,

At the ceremony marking Jonathan's death, there was a butterfly was fluttering around Tom.

After the ceremony, Tom with his kids get in the car and Tom said, "I want to place a stone on the grave of the Kamana Rebbe who is buried on the other side of the cemetery." They went to find the Rebbe's grave and suddenly, Boaz, Tom's son-in-law, saw a grave and pointed it out to Tom.

It was the grave of Rabbi Dovid Feinstein!

Years later this person turned up, out of the blue, at Tom and Susan's door and a week after that visit, while going to Tom's grave, Tom found himself at Rabbi Feinstein's grave.

In life, things that are meant to happen might get delayed, but eventually, they happen.

Jonathan z"l and Hila had a son named Max and Jonathan's legacy lives on through him.

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